Show us your vintage color sets!
 

I didn't start collecting vintage color when I first started collecting vintage TV's with round CRT's but the idea popped into my head one day (hey, these have round CRT's too) and I've been collecting them now for about 3 years. I think it is really cool to hear a 40 year old vintage TV crackle back to life and the B&W ones just don't do that unless something is very wrong. :)

The other neat thing I think about the vintage color sets is that much moreso than the B&W's, these are sets that after you restore' em you can actually watch 'em! :D

I just scored a metal cabinet tabletop 1962 RCA CTC-11E yesterday with a practically mint fake wood finish and the untrasonic remote option (rare). Today I'm refinishing a set of screw-in legs salvaged from a coffee table at the dump (local recycling center) and I'm going to have this set standing up, cleaned up and hopefully plugged in today. I'll post a pic later.

I'm sure I and the lurkers out there would love to see what round screen color TV's are in people's collections so how 'bout sharing pics and stories guy's!

Rob

Well, Rob, I have to post pics of my CT-100 color set now. I trash picked a TV with the front "pencil box" cover I needed, and now she's FINALLY looking right! I was excited as hell! The two year plus journey for the cosmetics, at least, is over :)

Well I just finished doing a quick wash job with the safety glass and bezel out and put the new legs on the CTC-11E. This set's in nice shape. It looks pretty good!

If anyone runs across an ultrasonic remote for a '62 RCA color set please let me know. I need one for this set.

There's a diffraction grating in the color symbol below the picture toob that changes color with the viewing angle. C O O L ! :cool:

Rob

Well it seems what I thought was a CTC-11 is actually a CTC-10 set, even though mine has a CTC-11 chassis in it. Check this image from the RCA Color Service Handbook. This certainly is my set, just in a different cabinet. This one shown here also has my remote option.

Cool! :cool:

Rob

Tim,

Take a glamour photo of your pride and joy CT-100 for us!

Folk's, this CT-100 of Tim's was never assembled at the Bloomington RCA plant, in fact it didn't exist until Tim assembled it recently in Buffalo, NY. It has been lovingly assembled from many separate parts obtained from far and wide. I'm sure Tim will share the interesting story with us.

Rob

Vintage color TV photos
 

Hello folks:
I registered just today after seeing this mentioned in the Antique Radio Forum, and thought why not? I am sorry I do not have a CT-100 to show you, but I do have a Westinghouse H-840CK15. It was a find of a lifetime for me, and proved without a doubt the value of networking. I had always talked about the value of networking, but I had not realized the full potential until last Fall, as a disconnected series of events lead to the find of a lifetime. It started at a 2001 swapfest in St. Charles where I met Peter Yanczer, who was starting a club that focused on early mechanical televisions. I thought, what the hell, and joined, even though I am a CRT tv man. Fast forward to August, at the Experimental Television Society first annual convention. There were about a dozen folks there, and I had an interesting time watching demos of different types of mechanical televisions and cameras. Later some of them came by my place to have a look at my stuff, and even though it was not their field exactly I think they had fun. We talked a good deal on the subject. One guy told me he had seen an old Westinghouse 15” color tv near his home in Virginia. We exchanged e-mail addresses, and about a week later I received an e-mail and photo of the set. It was indeed the 1954 H-840CK15 After an enjoyable week-long trip around the South I came home and set up my 200 plus pound 43 tube (plus the crt) pride of my collection, where I show it to anybody I can drag kicking and screaming into my studio. I have now started networking with several folks who collect the early color sets, and through them now know that mine is one of six known to survive as of this date. Just goes to show ya that it never hurts to get the word out about your hobbies!

To see this monster try http://home.earthlink.net/~marlinmackley and click the link.

By the way, I have a mint pencil box for a CT-100 and I am willing to trade for some knobs I need.

Respectfully submitted by Marlin Mackley

Re: Vintage color TV photos
 

Marlin,

Welcome aboard our new Vintage TV Forum! Congrat's on finding a copy of the first all electronic color TV to be offered for sale to the public in March of 1954, a full month before RCA was able to launch their better known CT-100. I guess you know that you are now a member of a pretty exclusive club. I also was fortunate to stumble across the requirements of a membership in this tiny fraternity and I am trying to keep an account of how many of these Westinghouses turn up. The number of known survivors is probably closer to 8 now. I'd be interested in knowing the chassis s/n of your set and whether it contains a 15GP22 CRT or a C-73599. The chassis number is on a white rectangular tag at the right rear of the main chassis. It starts with ME 000XXX, the X's being the three digits which mean something. The CRT should have a tag up on the neck somewhere, possibly under the purity coil (the coil closest to small end of the tube). Your grille cloth seemes to have the same weave as the original but is the only one I've seen in a different brown color to the normal grey. This makes me think yours has been stained by a previous owner. Is there any evidence of this you can see?

As for my story, I was searching through one of those free picture ads bargain finder type tabloid newspapers one Sunday morning about 3 years ago and my eyes passed a dark, poorly lit photo of a cabinet that looked like a portable dishwasher. I don't to this day know what made me stop long enough to read the text underneath. I still have the ad, saved for posterity. It read "1954 Westinghouse color TV, G.C. w/service manual. $price. Location. Ph.#."

I knew about the CT-100 but I was not familiar with this set at the time and what I was looking at was a cabinet with closed doors, it didn't look anything at all like a color TV, precious or otherwise. I called the seller immediately and when I asked what CRT it had in it was told 15GP22. That was all the verification I needed to hear! I was so excited by this point I couldn't stop shaking as I quickly had a shower and got in my Safari minivan to drive the merely four hours round trip (this thing was close!) needed to fetch this great piece of treasure.

It was filthy and the entire chassis was coated with a 1/2 inch layer of spider webbing which actually turns out helped preserve the copper plated finish. In my cleaning operation I removed the mumetal shield around the CRT neck to reveal the CRT tag and discovered that I had the developmental precursor to the 15GP22 in my set, the C-73599....Bonus! :cool:

I tried to soft start mine and everything looked great as the speaker started to crackle and the horizontal output stage started to whistle until the gun end of the CRT lit up with a bright pink inside and at that point I knew I was snookered. The CRT was gassy. That is as far as I have taken my electronic restoration. If I can resist temptation and leave the darned thing original, no recapping, nothing I think it will be more valuable way down the road. Pictures of the back and chassis' in my set may be seen here.

http://www.tvhistory.tv/advertising3.htm

I have come to a theory that Westinghouse labs had a stock of the C-73599 CRT's and decided to use them in the first sets out the door. This enabled them to beat RCA which was having trouble getting production capability for 15GP22's on-line. I heard that an attempt to tool up for production of these tubes in the RCA plant in I believe Argentina ended in total failure.


Who would'a figured the first reply post would be from an H840CK15 owner? Is this a high quality forum or what!? :smlove:

Great stories are out there! We'd love to hear them.

Rob

westi 15
 

Hi Rob:
Great to hear from you, and glad a few more of these "washing machines" are turning up! My serial number is 5994, which seems awfully high for the limited quantity of these that were made. The one time I had the back off I did not find the CRT number, but when I can break away from a heavy work load I will look again, and put the tester on the tube.
Marlin

That is one beautiful CT!!!!

Is that the original finish? Mine's a lot lighter in color. Wow. Just WOW! :zoom:

Terry,

Welcome to the forum! Thanx for posting those fine pictures of your CT-100. I personally did not believe that the convergence on that set could look as good as that which you have most skillfully obtained. Be sure to put this accomplishment on your professional resume. :)

If you'd like to describe in a few words about your actual chassis restoration I'm sure there would be interest.

Wow, another early poster has shown us the best 15GP22 images we are likely to see. Is this a quality forum or what?! :smlove:

Rob

I just sold a 1954 Westinghouse H838KU21B on ebay. That's the extent of vintage tv's for me so far.
Some good pics here ///
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=2108209860

Hi Don,

Thanx for the post. Too bad you had to sell that beauty to someone else. :( Anyhow, seeing your high level of enthusiasm I guess I should start a new thread for monochrome sets, just in case the interest is contageous. :smsex:

Rob

I just plugged in my 1962 GE after it has sat untouched since I rebuilt the undercarriage for it when I brought it home 2 years ago. This is a real looker I think. A bit of tweaking and it will have a sharp picture. It still has the original 21FBP22. Needs vertical caps though. Great sound. The purity is off too, these sets needed to be manually degaussed once set to rest in their final viewing position.

Rob

Here's another cabinet view to give you a better idea of the unique styling of this 62' GE.

Rob

Just found this place. Neat!

Click on this link and scroll down. You'll see my '64 and '66 RCA sets as posted on my website Forum a while back.

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/sh...&threadid=4274

I love 21" Color sets! You guys have some great ones!

Hi Steve,

Welcome aboard!

I checked your link. You have two really fine vintage color RCA's there. That '66 CTC-20 is a real beauty, and the RCA sales card is a great touch! I've never seen that cabinet CTC16 before. Very nice. I have a restored CTC20 myself and several CTC-16s in various states of restoration at the moment. My atavar is a screen shot from my CTC-20 just after a by-the-book color circuit alignment, text added later with photoshop.

It is fun getting an old 40 year old color TV to crackle back to life, and then watch the old color shows on them!

Thanx for stopping by and sharing. Why don't you post your TV pictures here. It's really easy, but of course you'd know that, you have the same software!

Rob

Hi Rob (and all),

My wife is the computer genius. I'll have her post those shots here when I can.

My CTC-16 is a set I found on Ebay 2 years ago. The blond wood actually matches my living room, or I probably wouldn't have bid on it. (Glad I did though). The set cost me about 80 bucks to buy and about a million to ship! :rolleyes: Ah well.

The Danish Modern set I found locally.

When I was a kid, we could only afford black & white so I used to hang around the department stores staring at the Color sets there, waiting for something to come on in color (a long wait in those days, lemme tell ya!)

Now I can have all the 21" sets I want! Something about that round screen really gives me that "Glimpse of joy" that C.S. Lewis wrote about. Since I'm not an electrician, I like to get sets that are in pretty darn nice shape.

The sets pictured on this thread are really amazing! I'm glad I found this place!

The software here is exactly like my Forum, but you have a couple of extra little Smilies.

:)

Here is my CTC-16:

...And my CTC-20; the last of the Roundies:

My CTC-20
 

Here's my 1966, CTC-20. It is the plain Jane cabinet, not nearly as fine as Steve's. It has a 21FJP22 that had really bad cataracts when I got the set but as you can see from my avatar, the tube was great electronically. I was able to delaminate clean and re-attach the curved safety glass successfully last summer out in the warm sun. That was a scary job. It was worth trying since I cannot find NOS of these CRT's anywhere.

Rob

Here is my CTC-20 before I started the restoration.

Rob

Wow, good job, Rob! Can't believe you were able to delaminate and reattach the safety glass like that.

I can remember being able to walk to the local TV store (not THAT long ago, maybe 1980) and see tons of CTC-20's and older sets piled up and waiting for the junk man.

Sigh. :(

By the way Rob, your '62 GE set is truly neat!:cool:

Not sure what the policy is here regarding Ebay, but there are a couple of nice 21"'s up for auction right now:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=1363150544

Being sold by Klatuu, a 21" collector from LA. Nice guy, too.

And this blondie:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=2115610919

Don't know the seller, but it's a nice set!

Steve,

Adding links to ebay auctions you think would be of interest to readers of this forum, even your own auctions is fine. :)

I saw those ebay TV-s for sale. Klattu will be putting more vintage color sets on ebay down the road.

Thanx for your compliments about my '62 GE.

Yes, it is a shame now for those that are collecting that so many of these were sent to landfill sites, and NIB picture tubes also. Blame the bean counters for that one. It related to the costs and efficient use of commercial storage space. I guess if these were still as abundant though, nobody'd be collecting them. It is only after something has disappeared from the mainstream for a good number of years that the nostalgia aspect creeps in and something from our past becomes 'collectible'. One thing is for sure, these round screen color sets, as hard as they are to dig up now, are more plentiful today than they will be down the not so long road... so good luck hunting.

Rob

Wow, this Discussion Forum was forwarded to me by a fellow Vintage Color TV aficionado, & I also discovered that another friend/collector was posting here too. Small cyber space!

Anyway, I became fascinated by the 21" round-tube sets in the mid-60's when I stayed with my Aunt & Uncle for a week when I was in High School. They'd just bought a contemporary round-tubed Zenith console & I found myself glued to it. Years later, it occured to me that I'd like to own one of those sets, & the search was on. I even found an old Zenith model that looks very much like the one my Aunt & Uncle had. Attached is a pic of it, as well as other pics (in subseqent posts) of the other vintage sets I've collected. The first one I ever found, a 1961 RCA New Vista Color tabletop model w/metal cabinet, is now up for auction on eBay.

Thanks for forwarding me the URL to this site, Steve. Hi Rob!

Jon

Here's a pic of the 1st vintage round-tube 21" set I ever bought, a 1962 RCA New Vista Color with High Fidelity Picture Tube. Still in very good shape & in working condition. It's now up for auction on eBay.

Here's a one I never thought I'd find - a Danish Modern RCA "Entertainment Center" with stereo AM/FM radio & turntable. Set worked (picture was beautiful) when I first got it, but it died a short time later. I think the move from Pomona CA to Silverlake killed it!

This is a mid-60s RCA colonial style consolette - the 2nd 21" round-tube set I found in the Recycler, & the one that works the best. The picture on this set was described as "snappy" by a color tv expert! <G>

Here's a screen shot taken off the colonial RCA.

Another great screen shot off the colonial RCA...

This set is a real museum piece, my pride & joy - a 1959 21" RCA contemporary-style console. Not sure of the chassis number - maybe CTC-9? It worked when I originally bought it, but then began having focus & convergence problems. Could probably be restored by a loving aficionado (anyone out there in LA?). It has the front safety glass that Rob described, & the wood cabinet is rich & in very good condition.

Here's a screen shot off the '59 RCA. I love the rich, Technicolor quality!

Finally - my GE PortaColor. When these babies came out in the mid-60s I was dying to get one (imagine, a color tv you could pick up & take with you), but back then the $250 price tag was way out of range for a High School student. Finally, I found a later-model one from another collector, which I then donated in favor of this beauty that I got off eBay. MUCH closer in appearance to the original model I remeber!

60's Zenith color
 

Jon,

Great of you to join our discussion forum here Jon! You have some great sets. That Danish Modern entertainment center is a beautiful classic, and that '59 RCA ...Wow.

I have a 1966 Zenith 21" console that looks a lot like yours too but has different legs. I wonder if mine is the model your grandparents had? I'm posting a photo of it. It was donated to my collection a couple of years ago by a nice lady that had it stored at her cottage north of Toronto. It didn't look special until I got it home and cleaned it up. As the grime came off the thing started to shine like a real museum piece! It works too with minor issues like filter caps needing replacing when I have time.

Rob

I also have some vintage color sets, but mine aren't as impressive as the 1954 Admiral, Westinghouse and RCA sets I've seen here. I tend to prefer the 21" sets with all-glass picture tubes since it's easier to find these sets with usable picture tubes. Perhaps after I've restored and sold enough of my later-vintage color sets, I'll be able to afford to buy one of these true classics and then invest in restoring it.

My collection now includes four vintage color sets, two of which are in working condition.

My Sylvania 21LC28 is still in my garage. I placed it there last summer while preparing to move into my house. It should still work when I bring it into the house (this weekend) and I'll take some pics of it.

This is my most recent project. It's a Zenith 24MC32 circa 1962-63. This set has UHF but was built before '64 when UHF was made mandatory (service literature still shows UHF tuner as being included on "some models"). This set also was built before automatic degaussing circuits became standard equipment on color sets (no ADG circuit or coils in this set). Here's the picture of the set in operation.

John

Jon,

My grandparents actually owned a total of 3 Zenith color sets from the 60's. My dad's family was (obviously) quite wealthy to have owned 3 color tv sets in the 60's. Sundays were the day to be there, football games on 3 screens and the best fried chicken you could get in the North. They made their money in the rental-housing business (owned a trailer park). They lost one of their sets in '72 when a tenant stumbled in drunk on rent day, fell against the set and crushed the neck of the CRT against the wall. The other two lasted until 1980 and 1981 respectively when one set's picture tube finally quit and the other developed power supply problems that their repairman said weren't worth fixing. Two of the 3 were identical and the other had a different cabinet (two looked like mine, one looked like yours). I was just starting to learn to repair color sets then, so they gave me the 3 sets to see if I could make one good one out of them in 1982. I salvaged the good crt and put it in the set with the working chassis. A few days after I got a picture on it, my dad snapped the neck off the tube because my overprotective mom was afraid I'd get hurt working with those old sets. Needless to say I was less than pleased. I've been restoring tv sets semi-professionally for years. I started doing vintage electronics full-time five months ago. My parents are amazed that I'm actually making a decent living with this.

John

How does one go about performing cataract surgery on a 21FJP22?? I have an Admiral set which has an electrically-good 21FJ with terrible cataracts. I haven't tested the set, but I have reason to suspect that the picture tube cataracts may be its only problem. It almost looks like the safety glass would just FALL OFF if I removed the tube from the cabinet. Just how much implosion risk is there in such a task?

John

Sometimes I really hate to sell these classic sets and wish I could just keep them all for my private collection ... but then I remember that bringing these gems back to life and selling them is how I'm paying my bills and financing the launch of my line of tube guitar and hi-fi amp designs. Weighing the benefits (making a living at something I enjoy) against the disadvantage (selling classic sets I wish I could keep) puts it all in perspective. Here's a link to my latest listing on eBay ... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...em=2118776767. On this set, I just did what was necessary to bring it back to working order. I'm still in the process of acquiring the tools to do "by-the-book" color alignments, so I haven't re-aligned this one. My goal is to be equipped for by-the-book color alignments next year.

John

John,

Maybe someone who reads this forum would like to make a deal with you for your nice Zenith color set.

That's a shame your mom was paranoid about your safety and had your dad destroy the CRT in that set you were having luck restoring.

Delaminating the faceplate of a 21FJP22 is not without implosion risks. There are 346 sq. inches of surface area on the faceplate and at sea level multiply by 14.7 PSI and you get 5091 lbs of atmospheric pressure on the faceplate alone, more than the weight of an average car. You have to be careful of temperature gradients that put additional stresses in the glass and use no metalic scraping tools to carve out the plastic filler in between the faceplate and the CRT face. There is about 80-90 thousandths of an inch of room to work in. When you find a solvent that will break down and release the plastic filler you will be all set.

Rob

Zenith TVs
 

Thanks for the compliments on my sets, Rob. That Zenith of yours is awesome, you did a great job of cleaning it up. I love the distinctive tuning knob/channel changer on the Zenith sets from the '60s - very space-age.

John, if I were rich I'd fly you out to Los Angeles so you could restore a couple of my old sets, particularly my '59 & '62 RCAs. There doesn't seem to be anyone left out here who LIKES to restore old TVs.

I'm glad I was directed to this discussion board. I knew there were more of us crazy classic color TV collectors out there somewhere....

Below is a screen shot off my Zenith.

Jon