Glad I found you guys.
 

As my username implies, my father, who worked in electronics TV and radio repair in the sixties through the early eighties, was quite the collector. He accumulated "parts" Tv's , as well as coming home with a nice floor model every now and then, for us to watch. If they conked out, he kept them around for parts, sometimes fixed them and got a new one anyway, sometimes he brought home TVs that people failed to pay for repairs at the shop.

We are trying to clean the place up, he is finally relenting and willing to let some go. Being my father's son, I kind of hate to throw them in the landfill, etc. Some of these are huge wooden models, on up to the more compact, early eighties models, when they became "hard to work on". Sometimes people would call him up in the early eighties and he would tell them that the replacement part they needed would cost more than a new one, they would go get a new one, and then bring him the broken one, "for parts".

There are a pile of TVs, any chance that any of them are worth anything? Keeping them out of the landfill would be worth something to us. I would kind of like to keep a few around to let my son play with, he seems to take after gramps. Don't really want him tearing into something "highly collectible" either. Any ideas would be appreciated.
Thanks all!

Probably a couple pictures of the pile, or a list of models would be the best way for the good folks here to help you determine the value.

I'm sure that if you have watched the hoarder shows, you would probably understand that a picture really wouldn't do them justice. The pile that surrounds the pile, would make it pretty hard to tell. I'll see if I can write some model numbers down without causing an avalanche. We are kind of working on other areas of the house now, a little at a time. It's probably a safe bet that a lot of these sets were not running when parked. Is this a problem? I mean are there still components that could be needed somewhere? If they are much like vehicles, probably nine out of ten of the same model are parked for identical reasons.

Any photos would be better than none -- the experts here can spot the treasures that the average person might overlook. And, of course, model numbers are even more helpful.

Whereabouts are you located? You can just say the state. There may be some collectors in your area who could help.

Though it can be a pain, you'll likely have the best luck by selling/donating each set individually or in small groups, rather than in one big lot.

It is undoubtedly an overwhelming task, but you might just want to chip away at it little by little, listing a couple sets at a time on eBay or to this forum.

Were we lost.....?

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Most sets made after the early 50s* are not real high dollar items (think 0-250$ a head depending on condition and relative desirability).
*The exceptions would be modern styled sets like the Philco Predicta family, and the Silvertone Suburbanite, round CRT color TVs, etc.

Condition has importance. If the cabinet is beyond reasonable restoration the sets value is for parts, if the CRT is down to air or tests too weak to be usable that hurts value substantially (since it is darn hard to find replacements for some CRTs), flyback and vertical output transformer failure can hurt value (especially in some models). All other parts are usually fairly obtainable which is why the restoration part of this hobby is so active.
Sets made after the late 70's have nearly no collector interest or value and with few exceptions would be best to donate if working, E-waste if busted.
Most SS sets hold little value/interest unless they were early models (firsts or high failure models that are very rare now), the last of their kind (like last 23" monochrome console from Zenith), or are color sets with delta-gun CRTs that interchange with tube TV sets (most delta-gun CRTs are compatible with anything of the same screen size) which have value as CRT donors.

Where are you located? Who knows one of us may be closer than you think. There are some specific sets I am interested in, but if you are say in california and I am in tennessee it may as well be on the other side of mars for me, but someone else may be close by and could save the interesting sets.

Even the sets that arnt collectible, could be good parts sets to get others going

Welcome! Love the name.

Welcome!