While we normally don't cover consumer technology, sometimes we encounter something so bizarre or unusual that it practically demands documentation. This handheld cassette recorder, produced by EROs in the late 1970s, would be mundane if not for it's singularly hideous external appearance. This tape player is encrusted with fake gold and decorative fragments on almost every surface, so much so that it would not look out of place on the set of a James Bond flick. Even the buttons are covered in a fake gold coating. The features of this tape recorder are otherwise fairly mundane, though it does include a mechanical tape counter as well as a small analog meter to display battery level. A removable foot pedal allows the tape to be stopped and started hands-free, to aid in transcribing dictation.
This tape recorder also comes with an unusual attachment; a ring-shaped pickup which is designed to be attached around the earpiece of a Western Electric rotary telephone. With the pickup in place, both sides of a phone conversation can be recorded. Even Goldfinger needs to maintain records of his business transactions.
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