TRK-12 RCA Invoice "AS IS"
 

I was digging through the endless stack of vintage paper around here looking for some old NBC Sports docs and found this. I have no idea when or where I got it and it is a bit tattered...maybe bug chewed corners. It is a RCA Camden receipt for a "AS IS" TRK-12 with kinescope bought and shipped on 12/30/40. $100 delivered to an upscale suburb north of Philadelphia. The date puts it in the TRK-120 era. Factory closeout? Employee buy? Can I still get one? Now off to find the family if they are still around.

A novel idea (novel to me, anyway). I have sometimes done research to find the previous owner of a set that I found, but it never occurred to me to track in the other direction -- start with a purchase document and work forward to see if the set can be located.

Phil Nelson

Way cool! Not many houses in that location even now.
Too bad it doesn't have the serial number of the set to see if it is one of the known survivors.
It might still be sitting in a garage or barn in its original location.

Very cool document Dave. The employee price list I have from March 26 1940 shows the TRK-12 at $250 so this was a substantial price drop from that. The fact yours says "AS IS" might suggest it was a used set and the CRT already had some hours on it.

Darryl

Maybe a floor sample or demonstrator.

Perhaps a well "broken in" TRK12 that was at the Worlds Fair display...:)

Very cool! From what I read it seems television basically bombed in the pre-wars days, so that might explain the drop in prices at that time. It took WWII, unfortunately, to give it the major boost it needed in both improved technology, and the desire for the very optimistic post-war American to get the latest gadgets.

Wow! A factory invoice direct to the customer? That's a weird one. Cool find!

One of the pioneer early television collectors (Jeff Lendaro) acquired part of his extensive collection by using the RCA annual reports from 1939 and 1940. They included pages with photos and names of their television engineers.

Jeff then used the phone book to find them (or their descendants). He was given several prewar sets, paper, and equipment.

If I recall correctly, he did this when he was a teenager, or maybe in his 20s.

I own two prewar sets, a TT5 and a TRK12, and early postwar sets.

There really are only two technology differences.
First the IF frequency is higher,
using stagger-tuned single tuned circuits or overcoupled transformers rather than the prewar 8-12 MHz bandpass filters.
Second is the user of flyback generated HV for the CRT rather than
AC line 60 HZ power and a very expensive HV transformer.

Other than that, and a certain great additional complexity due to color,
the 1954 CT-100 looks awfully similar.

Now the prewar British sets did have a extremely different look, both circuit-wise (thyratrons as sweep oscillators!) and construction-wise (very military looking tag boards). The early US sets did have some military-ish features, not much.

Then ... well post-war, the word Muntz and all it implies appeared.

Dave,

Here's the intersection of Alden Rd. & Fetters Mill Rd. in Bryn Athyn, Pa.
Good hunting.

-Steve D.

I would submit that there was a third technological advance (if it even constitutes an advance, which is arguable) that really differentiates post-war sets, at least a majority of them, apart from the pre-war offerings: intercarrier sound.

That $100 in 1940 is equal to $1,715.97 in 2016 dollars :yikes:

Everyone in Bryn Athen belongs to the local Swedenborgian church. I have found a few searches as to his being in the church. Pitcairn of the autogyro fame was a member. I think an early Pitcairn founded the beginnings of Eastern Airlines. Also the Asplund arborist family is around. It all sounds like a TRK neighborhood...with a discount. A visit there is in order. And this is also Philco engineer home territory nearby in the day. I got my first TV123 up there. Glad you are all having fun with this.

Odd they bought the set five days after Christmas, maybe they wanted to watch Dick Clark's Rockin New Years Eve on it? :-)

The odds of the original family still living there are pretty slim, and Mr Simons is almost certain to be pushing up Daisies by now.