Golden walkmans: luxus in a portable player

There are a very few group of walkmans that have been plated with that  precious metal in the body and represent the most luxurious walkmans ever made. Two of them (the Jx2000 and JX3000 from AIWA) are widely known, but there are a few more not as well-known that maybe you will discover in this article.

The most well known golden walkmans are, undoubtely, both the JX2000 and JX3000 from AIWA. Let's take a look at them.

AIWA JX2000

This is the JX2000 which is identical to the HS-JX505, except for the golden plated finish (made with 18k Gold) that it came with a gorgeus gold box, a big case and all the accesories were golden too.

AIWA HS-JX2000	Upper view.	Special supplied case.
Some units came with a certificate stating the serial number of this limited edition.	In other countries, the certificate is different..	AIWA JX2000 and JX505.
Upper view.	Side view.	AIWA JX2000 box. This one is the main european box.
Box opened.	Box opened.	Detail of the earphones, remote and mic.
The charger.	User manual.	This box, slightly different that previous one, was released in asian markets.
Both european and asian boxes, with slightly different design.	There are special versions of this unit. One is the EX50, which is the one released on japanese market, the gold version of the JX50. Photo: Unknown.	There it is the EX50. Notice that it states a different text at the bottom: "Advanced Worldwide" synthesized tuning.
The JX2000TW was a special commerative release of the boxed JX2000D to commerate the 80th anniversary of the Chinese nationalist KMT political party in Taiwan and as such was only ever released in Taiwa. Thanks to Plop for giving the info. Photo: Unknown.	Here you can see two different versions of this curious walkman. Photo: Unknown.	This one is a slight different version to the previous one, without the logo to conmemorate the 80th annyversary of the chinese political party. Photo: Unknown.

AIWA HS-JX3000

The JX3000 was released on 1991 and was the golden version of the already famous JX707. It was released also in a limited number of units. It's identical to the JX707 and features Dolby C and Voice Navigation, but had lost the bi-azimuth mechanism and another features, sadly.

AIWA HS-JX3000	Side view.	Case, identical to the JX2000 one.
JX3000 and JX707.	Backside view.	Open view.
The JX3000 came with a similar box to the Jx2000. Courtesy of Minty.	Open view. Courtesy of Minty.	This is the EX3000 model, a special version on the JX3000 only released in the japanese market, which features a TV tuner as an extra (notice that this is clearly seen by the black border around LCD display). Photo: R.Daneel.
In this backside view there can be seen the adition of the TV tuner on the bottom switch. Photo: R.Daneel.	After being acquired by SONY, they released an updated version: the JX909, with the new logo. Photo: Unknown.

Other models from AIWA

Beside the well-known JX2000 and JX3000, AIWA released another golden walkmans, models that are less sophisticated and were their top-line models. This models are rarer than the previous.

AIWA released the P108 gold, exactly the same as the P107., a simple player with Auto reverse and DSL.	My P108 in gold. A really rare unit.	AIWA also released other golden models, but I don't find them so interesting, because they are from the post-SONY era. Those are the SR92, same as RX703. Courtesy of Minty.
The AIWA HS-SR92. Courtesy of Minty.	There was a special edition of this player, the HS-RX2005, which seems to correspond to a big event back in 1992 at Malaysia. Courtesy of Minty.	The AIWA HS-RX2005. Courtesy of Minty.
Another model is the SJ92 (the same as HS-J202). Photo: Unknown.	Backside view. Photo: Unknown.	Side view. Photo: Unknown.
Upper view. Photo: Unknown.

SONY Golden Walkmans

SONY released also a few golden models, but the majority of that seem to not to be true gold-plated but they seem to be close to that:

One of them is a rare version of the original DD model  (from my collection)	Upside view.	The silver, red and gold version (left to right).
Another one is an asian market WM-10 'Mizuno' version, which seems to be a special version released to commemorate any special event of the sportswear brand.	Upper view.	Backside view.
One of the most rare gold walkmans is this one, the extremely rare WM-EX1 HG gold, a special version of the HG (High Gloss) version of the EX1. Photo: Unknown.	View of the box of this rare unit. It's surprising that this box is a standard carpet box and not a special one (like the EX-1HG has, for example). Photos: Unknown.	Some detailed views. Photo: Unknown.
This one is another truly rare model: the WM-3EX with gift box. Courtesy of Rengzi.	The SONY WM-3EX and a brief description by SONY. Image: The 20th Anniversary Walkman CD.	Here you can see the gorgeous box of this WM-3EX player. Image: The 20th Anniversary Walkman CD.
Another model that was golden was the EX-7, an anniversary model from the lastest years (1997). Image: The 20th Anniversary Walkman CD.	To end with the SONY golden walkmans, this is a rare WM-EX621 in gold color. Photo: Unknown.	Backside view. It seems it has a similar circular window like the EX615. Photo: Unknown.

Panasonic

But not only AIWA and SONY made golden walkmans (although they were the most proliphic brands indeed); Panasonic has a few golden models that I show here, and I'm sure they released probably another one:

The RQ-SX91 Gold (from my collection)	Backside view.	The SX91's front door is divided in two pieces that are articulated. I'm not sure what's the utility of that, but it's cool.
Door completely opened.	This RQ-SX75 seems to be golden too. Photo: Unknown.

To close this article, I'd like to show you my three authentic golden-plated walkmans:

Panasonic SX91 gold & AIWA JX3000	Panasonic SX91 rounded by the JX2000 and the JX3000.	All golden units in my collection. I wish I could have also the EX1 HG Gold and the WM-3EX.