Kolster-Brandes Ltd was a British manufacturer of radio and television sets based in Foots Cray, Sidcup, Kent that was American owned.
The company was a descendant of Brandes, a Canadian company founded in Toronto in 1908. Brandes became part of AT&T in 1922 and a British subsidiary Brandes Ltd was established in Slough, in 1924, to manufacture headphones.[1]
The company rapidly expanded producing a range of loud speakers and in 1928 moved to a former silk mill at Foots Cray. The company was renamed Kolster-Brandes Ltd after the American parent company merged with the Kolster Radio Corporation. In 1930 the company supplied 40,000 of its Masterpiece two-valve, bakelite cabinet radios to the Godfrey Phillips tobacco company, who gave them away to customers in exchange for cigarette coupons.[1] K-B also began a long association with Cunard after they won a contract to provide communications equipment for the RMSQueen Mary ocean liner.
In 1938 Kolster-Brandes became part of ITT's British subsidiary Standard Telephones and Cables (STC).[1] The Foots Cray site was also shared by Brimar, another STC company founded in 1933 to manufacture American pattern valves for the British market.[2]
In 1960/61 STC took over Ace, Argosy, Regentone and RGD, and then in 1968 the Kolster-Brandes logo name changed to ITT KB, and between 1973 and 1974 the KB was dropped from the logo and sets were only made under the ITT label.[citation needed]
KB made a large number of radios and radiograms, a few models of which were the 285, 422 Cavalcade, 666 and the CG20.
The company also made a popular selection of record players which include the Playtime, Gaytime, Dancetime, Tunetime and Rhythm, the last two of which are valve operated.
