In the early 1950s, Chicago-based industrial design firm Painter, Teague and Petertil won an interesting commission: Design the world's first portable transistor radio. Texas Instruments had worked out the miniaturization, then partnered with electronics brand Regency to create a consumer product. All they needed was an ID firm to give their technology a consumer-friendly form. The design team got to work, and the Regency TR-1 hit the market in 1954. This was a game-changing device, a predecessor to the Walkman or the iPod. Up until then, families owned a single radio that they'd gather around, like it was a hearth. But now a teenager could take this tiny radio into their room and listen to whatever stations they wanted, or take their music on the go. Regency sold at least 150,000 of these, and competitors wanted in. Raytheon released their 8TP in 1955. It was sleeker in appearance, but considerably larger than the TR-1. In 1957, a Japanese upstart called Sony released their TR-63. In 1960, Zenith released their Royal 50 model. While each of these objects has their own aesthetic, they all clearly belong in the same class. It took an ultra-talented industrial designer, Richard Sapper, to produce a true design classic. Here's his Telefunken Match, which came out in 1962: The preceding models look like plastic toys. Sapper's leather-and-aluminum form looks like a well-crafted precision object. You can find surviving examples of all of these on secondhand sites. Which one would you rather own?

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