Kmart Radios

1924 catalog

Kmart was originally founded in 1899 as the S. S. Kresge Corporation. (Sebastian Spering Kresge) The use of the brand name "Kmart" only began in 1962, but they kept using the Kresge name on retail stores until 1987. At it's peak in 1994 Kmart had 2,486 stores globally, making it the largest retailers in the world at that time. But 1994 was already 4 years into it's first major bankruptcy. Their decline continued for decades and as of 2026, there are only three remaining Kmart locations in the world. You can imagine that with a 125 year long history, Kmart sold a lot of radios. But most antique radio journals steer clear. The only entry I found was a someone selling reprints of the 1929 Kresge radio catalog, and of course the many works of Don Kresge at the Alabama Historical Radio Society. [LINK]

The earliest radio the Radio Museum lists with a Kmart-related brand is the Kres-Tone Six Transistor radio [SOURCE]. (Kres is short for Kresge). It's a nice 1950s-style plastic chassis table radio. The earliest Kres-tone branded radio I am aware of is the 75-1 from 1948 which is a wooden table radio.  Unhelpfully, the US patent office lists the first use of the Kres-tone trademark to be in 1957. So that was either filed very late, or the one below is a fraud. (I am assuming the former.)

radioatticarchives.com

The chassis is in a somewhat less ornate, art deco style similar to the RCA sets of the era. For those big wooden radios, some of which were basically furniture, Kresge even sold their own Kresge Household Polish. It specifically said on the label "Cleans and polishes all radios, furniture & autos."  But in the 1920s and 1930s their advertising outside of the catalog was scant. Except for those catalogs, Kresge  appears in no publications I can find; except for their daily stock price in the New York Times, and that only prior to Black Thursday. 

From surviving paper catalogs we know that Kresge was selling radios as early as 1924. But that 1924 catalog was mostly kits. These were parts and parts lists with instructions for hobbyists to assemble a Reinartz detector receiving set. That receiver design is named for John L. Reinartz. He started his own eponymous company and began making and selling 1-tube regenerative receivers. The name Reinartz remained attached to CW receivers through the 1920s even as the designs grew more complex and added more tubes. But early experimental stations like 5EK did use those early Reinartz receivers. 

That 1924 Kresge's Radio Catalogue and Buyers Guide is definitely early. It's 31 pages long and doesn't even includes the tubes... though it did have tube sockets. I guess you were on your own to source the vacuum tubes. It's also notable that the radios are not branded and the questions arise: When did Kresge start selling branded radios and when did they start selling Kmart branded Radios? Do those dates overlap? When did it end? I can confirm that hobbyist mindset continues at Kresge through the 1929 catalog. We also know that no Kmart branded radio can exist before about 1962. So that's our time brackets. 

Kmart sold many different branded transistor radios over the years, mostly portables. The site plasticradio.com has a few images. [SOURCE]  I think we're all very familiar with the vintage Sears and Radioshack radios. There are legions of them. But I think Kmart is under appreciated. Take for example this little AM transistor radio. It's nice and compact, about 3" x 2.5" and less than an inch thick. That's less than half the size of my 1950s Candle 6 transistor. There is even a 1/8th headphone jack in the back. It's adorable.

This one [above] has a clear number in the middle of the CPB. It looks like 6OIA, or maybe 601A... unless that's a G and not a 6. Maybe it's not so clear. The Tuning capacitor is stamped 2A-20H1 and below that 5213. I tried to parse it but none of these seem to be date codes. This particular 1960s Kmart Radio also came in green and yellow. It's more sleek than the boxy leatherette portables carry that brand name. I've also seen that pocket model with the Emperor logo on them. The Hong Kong manufacturer clearly found another buyer. All of these models proudly bear a "Made in Hong Kong" origin imprint.  

But that's not the end of the Kmart radios. In the 1960s there dual-branded portable AM/FM radios appeared. The best example I found was a series with the model numbers: 30-01, 31-60, 31-42, 30-30, 31-88, 30-62, 31-64 and 30-50. The front has a Kmart logo embossed on the surface, usually painted silver. and on the back is a paper label "S.S. Kresge Company." They all have similar materials, finishes color schemes and vary only in size and features. The 31-88 for example is a multi-band, AM/FM/AIR/Police/Weather radio. From that set the 30-02 and the 30-50 are beige instead of brown. I think it's the earlier model line. 

I also found models of walkie-talkies with the dual brand, models 32-61 and 32-65 clearly from the same 1960s series. It is tempting to think that the last two digits are the year, but that does not line up chronologically. But they provide a clue as to the end of the dual brand because the next set of walkie-talkies from the 1970s is model 06-32-67 and instead of S.S. Kresge on the paper label it reads "Kmart Corporation."  Luckily those have the manufacturers date stamped on the back March 1978. Also from this clearly transitional era I found a portable AM/FM Cassette recorder, model 6-33-56. Despite the numbering is is still labeled S.S. Kresge Co. So it appears that the Kresge brand was retired from radios about 10 years before the end of the retail signage.

1979 Kmart circular

By 1980, table radios were basically extinct at retail. So what we have left are car radios and different sizes of portables. How much longer did Kmart "make" radios? Those Kmart Corporation radios like the 06-31-51 and the 6-33-56 have a continuity of design which put them all in the late 70s. But there was at least one more model line. In the 80s I found the 06-44-10 which looks distinctly like a new line and new design. It's minimalist silver chassis looks vaguely 90s and eschews the ornate designs of the prior lines. This was probably their final line as the bankruptcies quickly followed.