Mr Kenton (45), of Dunedin, is selling the collection online with a starting bid of $20,000.
He hopes the collection, numbering more than 300, will be acquired by a museum.
"It's got to the size where to me, it would be nice to be somewhere where everyone can see them.
"It's such an iconic collection now. It's one of the top ones in the world, in little old Dunners.
"I would love it to go to a museum where everyone can see it.
"There's a lot of people in my generation who it would just bring back memories for.''
Manufactured between 1978 and 1989, most of them still work. The players were acquired over about 15 years.
When he was a teenager in the 1980s, ghetto blasters were highly prized, Mr Kenton said.
By the time he started collecting, many had been consigned to people's sheds and garages or thrown out.
Now, they had re-entered popular culture, and were a big nostalgia item.
"I grew up with that culture, break-dancing, all that sort of stuff,'' Mr Kenton said.
All the '80s stuff is starting to come back. You always see a ghetto blaster on the latest music video.
"When I was a kid I was always pulling things to bits. Back in the day, you'd look through a shop window and think, 'wish I could have that', but they were expensive back in the 80s.''
His favourite is a 1981 Sanyo model.
"It's quite a quirky looking radio. It's got a big eight-inch subwoofer in the middle of it, which back in 1981 was ahead of its time.''
Mr Kenton still plays cassette tapes, and has "hundreds of blank cassettes still new in their wrappers''.
He bemoans the sound quality of modern music-playing devices, and will not be parting with his original Brandt boom box.
