Sears Silvertone “medalist” portable set
 

Last Sunday, I went to pick up some b/w sets from an old tv shop and I happend to see this set sitting out in the woods. I went over to it and then realized it was a color set, for some unknown reason, I took it with me. Naturally, the chassis and every other piece of metal is nice and badly rusted and all controls were frozen except for the volume. I’m planning to see if I can get some action out of it in the next few weeks. Haven’t tested the CRT yet but I’m hoping it’s still good. I need to first evict the ant colony and replace the white capped tubes. More photos coming soon.

Nice save, I'd like to see a resto done on this one.

Ants aren't too bad, especially when I think of the stories I've heard about sets that were roach-infested. It just goes to show that there are certain cases in which one can safely tell a customer to take a hike.

That's an instant-on set. A very frequent failure was the double-gang on-off switch. A little pot metal tripper breaks off, rendering that part of the switch inoperable.

It looks like a fun project. I wonder if that is a Japanese made set? Put some penetrating oil on the pot shafts and in the pots, let it sit and see if they come loose.

Jon A.: You are forgetting down south they have fire-ants which bite like a big old spider and leave burning sore...If it is full of those it is worse than roaches.

Man, that cataract is NASTY.

That reminds me of a Rescue 911 episode in which a baby is attacked by fire ants.

Roaches still seem worse to me just because of how gross they are--not to mention my OCD that largely manifests itself as a contamination phobia--and that they're so hard to kill.

The set is a genuine Warwick job! I have one in my collection that is probably the last of the tube sets built by them, before they were took over by Sanyo.

Yup its a US built Warwick. IIRC its abt 1970. Most tubes. After
this type they had a hybrid with modules then a SS set with
the new RCA in line tube. That was a real dog.
Old Coot has a good point on the switches. Maggy & Admiral
used them alot too along with most others. You could repair them but
since you gotta take them out we always changed them. No steady
hands in our shpop !

73 Zeno:smoke:
LFOD !

On some of those I used to rewire those switches and just make it an on-off function. I told the owner's they didn't need that instant on feature. :thumbsdn:
In my previous entry it should have been "taken over by Sanyo".

I had one of these long ago, before I learned who Warwick was. You may have a third color control, like Magnavox "chromatone" and its call "chromix" on a Sears IIRC.

Its a heavy set with a very sturdy plastic cabinet. Mine worked OK but did not look great, it was not the CRT either, but a borderline video or IF issue. I sold it for $20 to a kid who bought an Atari and he was thrilled.

I thought all the Silvertone color TV's were RCA knock offs:nerd:, mainly because they used many of the same tubes. The console Medalists looked like an RCA clone. The PC boards looked very different than RCA tho, almost like Admiral's did.

We did the same thing, with the customer's approval, after explaining that the switch broke due to whacking the knob too hard to turn the set off.

The first Silvertone sets were genuine RCA chassis, IIRC CTC12 & CTC15.
When RCA decided to license the building of clones, Warwick changed the design slightly and those were the most common sets built by them. The chassis layout was different, but the circuitry was very similar.
There seemed to be two different versions of the set shown. The later version was a better design and used less tubes. That's the model I have! :thmbsp:

Here’s the inside. Tested the CRT and it tested ok after sitting at 8 volts for 20 minutes or so.

This looks like a job for Shango. It just needs a possum carcass and a few clumps of weeds growing out of it.

Wow I dont think even Shango could get this running !
What a rust bucket. Start with a vert out then some new dag coating.
Then watch it burn up..........

73 Zeno:smoke:
LFOD !