This Skymaster 6G-620 was made in Japan in 1958. It was almost certainly manufactured by Yaou Electric Co. Ltd. It can be found branded as a Yaou and it uses a GENERAL (Yaou) speaker. I’ve seen this radio advertised in ‘The Deseret News’ on June 12 1958 for the sale price of $28.88 (normally $39.95) including a leather case, earphone, antenna and battery.
I know very little about Yaou. I do know that in 1957 Yaou were making refrigerators and in 1964 they were making televisions but other than that I don’t have any other historical information on them.
This Skymaster also resembles very closely the Fuji Denki TRB-603 featured in Bob Davidson’s collection. It looks like the same cabinet is used on both radios. Fuji Denki was formed in 1923 and later became Fuji Electric (REF 1a). This Skymaster also uses ‘Fujitsu TEN’ brand transistors. Fujitsu is a spin off company of Fuji Electric (REF 1b). Given these connections it appears that Fuji had some sort of a business relationship with Yaou, supplying them with transistors and Yaou in turn supplying them with cabinets.
REF 1a ‘Japans Computer and Communications Industry’ by Martin Fransman
REF 1b Fujitsu History: 1935 -1949
