[Ratmagiclady]

To my great dismay, I discovered yesterday that my wife had "accidentally" donated my Proton 320 clock radio to Goodwill. I was really heartbroken! For those of you who are not audiophiles or radio-addicts, the Proton 320 is a classic radio produced in the early 1980s and was one of the very first "high end" table/bedside radios on the market. It had terrific sound quality and outstanding reception capability. Plus it looked sleek and futuristic (for a clock radio at the time, that is). It originally cost $100, which was a lot compared to the crappy Sony dream-machines that were selling for $25. Even now, you can find them for sale on eBay for upwards of $50-70, so these are definitely sought-after collector-items that have retained their value even after two decades. I've heard it referred to as the "Cadillac" of alarm clock radios of its day.

The sentimental value of this radio for me is enormous. I have owned the Proton 320 since I was in high school, which was 25 years ago. It's served me really well, and I only stopped using it on a daily basis a few years ago when I got an iPhone-dock Sony radio for the sake of my wife, who wanted to listen to her iPhone music on it in our bedroom. After I got the Sony, I moved the Proton to our guest room, where it was barely ever turned on. When my daughter moved into the guest room recently, I unplugged the Proton and put it in our basement storage area "for safe keeping"-- thinking that I might either sell it someday or set it up in another room that needs a radio.

Anyway, long story (sorry!) short, my wife saw it sitting there unplugged in the basement, near the pile of old clothes and books that we were planning on donating to charity, and assumed I meant to donate the radio as well. I went looking for it yesterday and couldn't find it anywhere in the house, and I then--my suspicions aroused-- I looked at the recent donation inventory form that she had filled out, and the very first item she had written there was "clock radio." Damn!! Somebody at our local goodwill may stumble upon a real diamond in the rough. They might not even fully appreciate this radio's history and value.

So I have thought about going to the Goodwill location to try to find it and buy it back, but I think I'll just let it go and say good-bye to that old electronics gear that was part of my past. I'm now moving on, thinking about getting a new Sangean WR-22 clock radio that has bluetooth capability! But I'll always feel sad about the way in which my Proton met its fate. (I tried not to get too upset at my wife, as it was an honest mistake. But she thinks I'm a big packrat and has not been happy with my keeping things that we don't use or need, so perhaps there was a little more motivation to her "mistake" in giving away the radio...)

Has this ever happened to you?? I thought this episode reminded me of when we hear of stories of estate sales where people are selling old camera lenses for ridiculously low prices because they don't know anything about their true market value. Like someone selling the FA 43mm limited lens for $250 or something like that. Or people that find amazing deals at thrift stores, where a nice copy of the F 35-70mm or F 28mm is attached to an old film camera that is selling for $15. Etc.

Oh well, c'est la vie. Thanks for reading. This concludes my 5-step coping process in dealing with my grief over losing this radio-- the "acceptance" stage. Good-bye, old friend!

I suggest trying to buy it *back* from Goodwill. This is the kind of thing that could end up on the web-auctions they have that I keep hearing about.

[ChrisPlatt]

Now that I have finally moved I tried out the Proton 300 "The Radio" I bought awhile ago.

Chris

[seventysixersfan]

Now that I have finally moved I tried out the Proton 300 "The Radio" I bought awhile ago.

Chris

Now that I have finally moved I tried out the Proton 300 "The Radio" I bought awhile ago.

Chris

So how does it sound/perform? Enjoy!

[ChrisPlatt]

The Proton 300 sound is very good, but FWIW to these ears the 320 is almost as good.

The 300 has a more powerful amplifier so no doubt it can play louder without distortion.
It also adds auxiliary input and stereo sound if you add the optional 301 extension speaker.

Chris

[condor27596]

That goodwill salary thing has been shown to be false (I am not sure how much they make though). What is not false is that my apartment burned down in 1985 and I was homeless and did not make much at all at the time and I called the red cross and asked if they could help me out and they said, "we really only help foreign people". The irony is we had this campaign at work to get 100 percent of people to give to charities and I had been giving to the red cross. That stopped and never again.

"saving money is like stealing from me"
"I targeted older men with no kids"
"I spend your whole check the day you get paid to make sure you don't have any money"

Yes. I know exactly what wives are like. I now have a life of freedom and joy.

Be happy you only lost your cherished radio.

[mattb123]

I used to live next door to a Pulitzer Prize winning author and journalist, Leland Stowe when I was a kid. He was the nice old guy next door. He gave me an antique bamboo fly rod of his and I never did much with it but store it in the garage. When I didn't take it on my first couple of trips to live in Colorado for college, my dad threw it out while cleaning the garage. I was heartbroken! He said "Well, I haven't seen you go fishing in years.". I also lost my old record collection and my original Snurfer in the purge. Sad day.

[Liney]

I had a pile of old paperbacks that I've had for years, re-read them all several times and used to dip into the pile every time I went travelling (I found a real book didn't run out of charge in airports, didn't attract attention from security, and didn't need to boot up when I needed to stand in a queue for more than five minutes). On a different shelf were a bunch of books I had purchased as a job lot from a sale, started reading most of them and given up out of desperation for a poor plot and lousy characters.

Came home one day to find the memsahib had been donating to charity and had almost cleared out the wrong pile! I lost some classics, a few Stainless Steel Rat, couple of Heinleins, my copies of "Hunt for Red October" and "Battle field Earth". Some of them were old friends, and many had interesting backstories (such as, when we detached somewhere for work in the good old days before kindles and the like, you didn't dare leave a book unattended. Someone would come along, tear out the last few pages and post them back to you at home. The result was that you couldn't find out the ending until you got back...)

I've now got soft copies of most of the ones I lost, but I miss the weight of a well thumbed book in my hand, the sort of thing that is so dog eared that it speaks volumes on how much the story was enjoyed