TAXAFINN PHILIPS MUSEUM - The ARISTONA story

From Bob van Apeldoorn in The Hague, Holland, I have received this great information about the history of the Aristona-brand, which Philips have owned for many years. Thank you again, Bob, for this valuable information:

Philips owned a lot of daugther companies, they often bought them because of better technology. The daugther companies I know about are Aristona, Erres, Dux, Hornyphon, S.B.R., Siera and Magnavox.

Most of the companies are or were selling Philips equipment with another nameplate on it, sometimes the design or color was also changed a bit. It was mostly the cheapest Philips equipment they were selling that way. So they become a sort of budget brands, but with good quality equipment.

Aristona was in Holland formerly known as NSF, who in the 1920s was a producer of small series of radio's and transmitting equipment. Philips bought NSF a few years later, and NSF produced the first Philips Radios type 2501 and 2502 in 1927. NSF also continued production under its own brand, the NSF-radios they produced were made from a Philips chassis with another case. In Belgium (were S.B.R. and Siera also came from) and in Germany, NSF sold it's equipment under the name Aristona. Aristona became more popular than NSF. Philips decided in the 1950s to rename it to Aristona.

The company still exists in Holland, you can still buy here Aristona video equipment (they recently stopped with audio). All the NSF factories are renamed to Philips. The TV's, VCR's and DVD's look mostly exact the same as a Philips. But the price is lower.

Erres was a same kind of brand like NSF. They have invented a lot of techniques. That's why Philips bought them. Erres was located in The Hague. The factory existed here untill 1985. They produced Philips computers and telephone equipment, this also happened with NSF. The audio/video were produced at the Philips factories in Eindhoven. And later in other countries.The Erres brand exsisted here untill 1990 in a Aristona-like form.

Hornyphon is a Aristona-like brand from Austria.S.B.R. and Siera are also Aristona-like brands from Belgium, the S.B.R. brand still exists in Belguim. In Holland you could also buy Siera equipment. Sometimes in Holland, you saw a Philips, Aristona, Siera and a Erres TV standing next to each other in a Radio/TV store. That was funny, they looked all the same.

Philips bought many brands in the past. Aristona is one of them. Here in the Netherlands, in the 70's and 80's they had brands like Aristona and Erres. In the late eighties, they also introduced the Magnavox (USA) brand. (bought at the end of the 70's I beleive for the Odessy game machine) Only Aristona is still sold today. Only cheap vcr's and dvd players. But you will not find them very often.

All those brands where sold as "the cheap philips". People could by a good Philips product only with an other name on it, cheaper than normal Philips product's. All the other brands had models from Philips cheapest product line in their catalog.

The brand Norelco is still used in the USA for electric shavers. But in the 60's they made for excample your 2202 compact cassette recorder for the American market with the Philips-shield only with the Norelco-name inside!

Aristona was the biggest brand with TV's, VCR's and stereo equipment in their catalog. (in the Netherlands) Erres had that to, but was ended in the mid eighties. Erres sold also vacumcleaners and washingmachines. Magnavox only sold TV's, some VCR's and was into the CD-I system with, again, cheap models.

Philips made also product's for other brands like Radiola. (like the N4506) Philips is olso still an OEM manufacturer.

You know Philips owned Grundig for some time, and again, some Philips models where made with the Grundig brand on it.

I hope to find some pictures of Aristona-models from the early 70´s, and will put them on this page as soon as I get them.....