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Home-recorded reel-to-reel tape, "Cinta 15" (Boney M. compilation), in Sony box
Object/Artifact
Square Sony "Empty Reel" box (model "5A"), front in teal/ochre with a stylized reel graphic and "SONY / FOR RECORDING TAPE / EMPTY REEL / 5A"; "C 15" added by hand. Back: printed recording-data label (the 9.5 cm/sec — 3¾ ips — box checked) over "SONY REEL — SONY CORP. TOKYO JAPAN," with a blue-ballpoint name ("Guillermo Castillo"). Inside lid: a typed tracklist headed "CINTA 15," by Cara (side) 1–4, almost entirely Boney M. (Daddy Cool, Sunny, No Woman No Cry, Fever, Nightflight to Venus, Ma Baker, Rasputin, Rivers of Babylon, Brown Girl in the Ring, Painter Man, Belfast, Still I'm Sad, etc.), with handwritten additions and several Spanish titles; English titles often phonetically misspelled. The reel inside is a clear TDK reel (≈5 in.) — not the box's original Sony reel — wound with ¼-inch tape, with a paper leader and red/white splice tab; "#15" is marked in red on the tape.
2025.1.312
A home-recorded music compilation ("Tape 15") devoted to Boney M., the Euro-Caribbean disco group hugely popular in Cuba and the socialist bloc in the late 1970s–80s.
The Cabrera Arús family collection
Leopoldo Arús Caraballo collection
2025.1
Sony
TDK
Japan
Asia
R-5A
Box: Sony Corp., Tokyo, Japan (model 5A empty take-up reel box, sold without tape). Reel: TDK, Japan. The box and reel are different brands; they are associated as one item by the owner's matching "15" marks (box "C 15" / lid "Cinta 15" / reel "#15"), not by manufacture. Recording: home-made. Date: recording circa 1979–1985 (tentative, from the Boney M. song dates). Place: media made in Japan; recorded/compiled in Cuba.
Label
case front
SONY FOR RECORDING TAPE EMPTY REEL 5A
English
Printed
Note
case front
C 15
Spanish
T 15 (meaning "tape 15")
Ink
Note
case back
Guillermo Castello
Spanish
Ink
Note
case, inside
a paper with the title of the songs recorded was glued inside the box
Note
reel
C #15
Spanish
Spanish for (tape #15)
13.5 cm
13.2 cm
1.5 cm
Sony 5A box (lid + base); typed tracklist insert; TDK reel with tape, leader, and splice tab.
Celluloid
Cardboard
Plastic
Paper
Printed cardboard (box); paper label (tracklist); clear molded plastic (TDK reel); polyester magnetic tape; printed/ballpoint ink.
Fair
Leopoldo Arús Caraballo
owner, creator
Japan
Asia
production
Havana
Cuba
Caribbean
Central America
recording, use
Boney M. roster (Rivers of Babylon/Rasputin/Nightflight to Venus 1978, Painter Man 1979, etc.) dates the compilation c.1979–85; Sony "5A" = 5-in. empty take-up reel box; TDK reel (Japan).
Pairing note: the reel (TDK) is not the box's original Sony reel; the two are kept together as one record because the owner's matching "15" marks (box "C 15" / lid "Cinta 15" / reel "#15") establish them as a stable used set.