About the Company
Van der Molen was a British brand of reel-to-reel tape recorders active in the mid- to late 1960s. The machines were marketed and assembled in the United Kingdom, specifically in Romford, Essex, by Van der Molen Ltd, a small audio equipment maker focused on consumer-oriented products. The brand’s presence in the reel-to-reel market was limited and brief, and its products are now rare examples of niche British tape decks from that era rather than mainstream formats produced by large manufacturers.
The best-documented model was the Van der Molen VR4, produced around 1967. It was a solid-state consumer reel-to-reel recorder that supported three tape speeds (1 7/8, 3 3/4 and 7 1/2 inches per second) and could handle 7-inch reels. The VR4 featured a belt-driven three-speed transport, a full-track or half-track configuration, and piano key transport controls with a built-in amplifier and speaker. Van der Molen described this unit as representing British manufacture and attractive cabinetry aimed at home use, emphasizing aesthetic design and integrated audio features.
In the same production period, a lower-cost variant, the VR7, was marketed, often with quarter-track record/playback capability. Some of the remaining VR4 and VR7 decks were later sold as transport-only units for hobbyists and tape recorder constructors when cassette and stereo recorders began to dominate the consumer market and Van der Molen shifted attention toward other products.
Commercial success for Van der Molen’s tape recorders was modest, partly because the consumer market in the late 1960s was rapidly moving toward stereo hi-fi units and compact cassette formats, leaving mid-range mono reel-to-reel machines with limited appeal. Despite this, the brand’s deck designs reflect the era’s experimentation by small British firms in the home audio space, combining solid-state electronics with traditional reel-to-reel transports in visually distinctive cabinets.
Because Van der Molen did not continue to develop a broad lineup of reel-to-reel products and ceased production of these machines as market trends shifted, its involvement in reel-to-reel recorder history is small and niche compared with larger audio manufacturers of the time. Today Van der Molen reel-to-reel recorders like the VR4 and VR7 are of interest mainly to collectors and enthusiasts of vintage British audio equipment.