"Restoration" vs "Preservation" vs "?"
 

This has come up in a couple of threads here and elsewhere recently, and I thought the subject is important enough to merit a thread and discussion by all of us here.
What are your personal philosophies on the subject? Do you have any opinion at all? Lets get everyone talking here and see what opinions the community has. I will hold off on my $.02 and let some other people chime in first.

This was from Dave S' thread about his amazing prewar Andrea estate sale find.

This is my opinion. I believe we are caretakers of the really rare and scarce prewar and postwar sets. Every attempt should be made to document your restoration, pictures etc. I believe there is nothing wrong with cleaning of the cabinet and chassis. Although when I got a rca 8ts30 years ago I vacuumed inside the cabinet and sucked out the loose RCA label. Luckily I learned on a not so rare set to be more careful next time. Also if there are any parts missing such as knobs, grill, mask, transformmer then finding or making substitutes is OK. Now the grey area: every attempt should be mantained to keep all the original parts except the insides of capacitors, rotted wood etc. If capacitors are to be replaced then stuffing the old ones should be the first option. In the course of our collecting we will all have dozens of TVs so why must everyone be made to work? We all agree that we wouldn't put a LCD into a prewar tv but if I found a TRK12 mirror in the lid empty cabinet I might put one in until a chassis came along. Whatever is done should not harm the originality of the set. I once thought about taking the built-in bubble off my Automatic tabletop and putting it on my Automatic console but decided not to do it. The front of both sets match and I have never seen an Automatic console with the built-in bubble but have heard from one collector who claims to own one. This would have been reversable as long as I had both sets. I'm glad I didn't do that switch.

I agree that we have a duty as conservators, sometimes of a rare set or otherwise great examples of what this country is capable of.
We rarely get our time investment compensated when selling a "restored to operating set", so its a personal judgement call there. I do agree that we need to clean up and make it look good, securing labels etc.
Not everyone has the excess time to re-stuff the capacitors, so I just save the dead ones and keep other unsafe items such as rotted cords, etc in a bag concealed within the set's cabinet if possible.
Often, I focus on making the set safe, work reliably and look acceptably original again, hoping that alone will help maintain interest in it should it leave my posession.

Finding a set like Dave did means he has a great responsibility to mankind. When much is given, much is required. Seriously, he can do what he wants. If it was mine, I would clean it up first and try to find the missing parts. I would test the transformer and CRT. Then I would probably leave it alone for awhile. There would be no rush to restore it.

I found a Radiola Grand with the early cabinet within the past year and the PMs I got on it, other than offers to buy, was to not do a thing with it else risk de-valuing it. I don't know about that. I think if I got it playing with a minimum of alterations that would add to the value, not detract. Part of the fun, after finding these things, is actually showing how they work.

If your all about keeping the desirability as high as possible with collectors, then leaving them alone is probably the best option. However that means you are stuck with a bunch of shelf and floor queens that you can't do anything with other than look at.

Me, I like my sets to run and as we all know, that means capacitor replacement at the minimum, usually.

I've never had a set so valuable that I thought it prudent to restuff all the capacitors. I have restuffed some electrolytics so the top of the chassis looks original, but I've never been too concerned about what it looks like underneath as long as the work was good and safe. However if I had an extremely rare set, I would probably restuff all the paper caps also.

As far as finish goes, I try to buy sets in very good condition so I don't have to do anything to them. I like a little patina so a scratch here or a ding there doesn't really bother me. Although I do have an 8TS-30 that has a bunch of poly or something gooped on it that I'm going to have to do something with someday.

If you have to, using Howard's or something similar is fine and only refinish as a last resort. I've refinished enough sets to know that I don't really like to do it although my wife has gotten pretty good at it and likes to do it so problem solved if I come across something rough that I want.

The real answer to this question is:

"THERE IS NO REAL ANSWER"

Every situation presents it's own set of issues which enter into the decission on what to do with each particular set.

For Example: you are probably familiar with the CTC4 Hallicrafter clone set I resurected several years ago. (the story is on my web site) The set was a complete basket case and worth nothing as a collectable in the state I received it. To not restore it from the ground up would have meant that this rare set would have been lost as an example of the Hallicrafter lineage. AS caretakers it is my opinion that we have an obligation to do "what ever is reasonable and necessary" to not only preserve, but also to restore the sets in our charge.

Recently I helped a fellow collector who is restoring a very rare CBS color wheel set. The set is missing the power supply chassis and we constructed a replica steel chassis exactly like the only other known existing example. There is certainly nothing wrong with replicating parts and components that are pure unobtanium, and complete an otherwise incomplete set. And that holds true for cabinets too.

Not every set needs to be fully restored to operating condition. However it is my personal preference that the most interesting and unusual sets are always more interesting to people when they are functional.

If I had a historically significent pre-war set, I would certainly go to the extra effort to re-stuff caps and keep the underside of the chassis as close to original as possible. I would clean the cabinet and only refinish and restore if it was in very poor condition, and then I would try to refinish in a way that would be true to the way it looked when it was factory fresh.

I do not hold the same opinion of post war chassis undersides. On post war sets, I shot gun re-cap for reliability. As for post war cabinets, on a case by case basis, I do the gamut from just cleaning, to complete refinishing depending on the condition of the cabinet. To me, the set should look good first, then, if I choose to do so, I do an electronic restoration, to make it function reliably. Everyone is amazed when they see an old set opperating. Every time I show someone my RCA 21CT55 or my Moto 16CK1 in opperation, almost to a person they will say something to the effect that they can't believe a set that old can have such a beautiful picture. An operating set astounds most onlookers. And as Nuke said, showing a set in opperation is half the fun.

And as a mater of fact, an opperating set is worth more than one that dosen't function. Just look at the difference in price between opperating and non operating sets on ebay. A fully functioning restored set almost always will sell for more than one that was just unearthed from someones basement.

I've always wondered how different people make the decision whether to restore an electronic artifact or leave it in original condition.

Most of my stuff is not worthy of much debate, but I'm occasionally torn between the original / restored decision. On the one hand, I can easily imagine a hundred years from now how our best-intentioned restorations are going to be a source of dismay for collectors and historians. Yet a restored, working electronic artifact that looks and behaves like it did when it was new is a lot more enjoyable a thing for most people.

I have an Edison cylinder phonograph that has flaking varnish, partial loss of decal, worn pinstriping and green paint dots spattered on the lid. If ever there was a candidate for refinishing, this would be it. If I wanted a mint condition one, I could have bought one. I acquired this one inexpensively with defects that I intended to correct. (And I did replace the broken mainspring it came with.) Yet I look at the imperfectly reproduced Edison decals I bought and I worry about how different a restored pinstripe paint job might look and I keep trying to look at this with the eyes of a collector in 2114 (or in 3114!) That, plus of course my natural laziness and inertia has helped keep the Edison machine in original condition for the past 30 years. I think that might be a good thing, but I'm really not sure.

A friend of mine drives around a 1937 Plymouth in original (rusty with faded paint and frayed upholstery) condition. He has a ball with it.

I saw a TRK-5 with ALL original parts, including caps and tubes on display at an AWA Conference a number of years ago. The owner was adamant that he would not be "fixing" it; he was keeping it in original condition to serve as a reference for future generations. That was a new concept to me at the time, but I immediately saw the value of his decision.

This is usually a moot point since we're almost always dealing with artifacts that were manufactured by the thousands and there are already better examples in the museums than what many of us collectors are working on. And the dollar value of most of this stuff is relatively low. And the historical importance is minimal. (New experience for me, I didn't even cry when a collector friend recently bought an RCA 9-T-241 in rough condition and immediately removed the 10B and threw the rest of it away.)

Clearly, that's not the situation with the Andrea 1-F-5 I just got. It's an easy decision when one has an N.O.S. prewar television but perhaps not quite so obvious when it's a rare but beat-up, not one-of-a-kind piece with cracked veneer and rust on the chassis and perhaps a few missing parts. Its ugly right now to everyone but us hard-core TV collectors. It would look much better with the damage repaired. (Heck, they do that on million dollar old masters paintings!)

I'm glad to hear that there is a variety of viewpoints on this. I hope this discussion continues.

-- Dave Sica

I try to restuff caps in any set that is particularly rare or desirable, and will sometimes do that on more common sets if I like them or otherwise find some justification to do so. The desirability of sets changes over time so I usually bag the old caps and other parts that I change on sets that don't get cap restuffs and keep them with the set so if I sell it and the next owner wants the caps restuffed they can make it happen. I also will sometimes leave a set that works on the original parts as found...Usually because I can see more value putting the caps in to something that won't work without them.

I need to take the time to teach myself cabinet restoration, but some minor gluing and howards treatment can go a long way on some sets.

I can't believe he just tossed the chassis on that 9-T-246! The power transformers have a good deal of value not to mention the tubes and other borderline unobtainium transformers....Of course when I decide to scrap a set, which is a rare event, I try to keep every piece that could conceivably be useful in some project down the road. These sets will never be made the same way again, so failure to save parts that are only becoming rarer seems wasteful to put it mildly.

Just as with old cars, pristine restorations are a logical conclusion of beauty contests but the really interesting ones are the unrestored yet in good working order examples.

I hate to see any modern components in old technology items but I prefer to see sets (or cars) in good working order so careful stuffing gets my vote.

Old things should look genuinely old.

Peter

I think that 99.5% of the restoration is the cabinet, sides, back, inside, and top of
the chassis, and .5% would be the rarely seen bottom of the chassis. In addition
I like to see restorations documented in threads here with pictures and text. I too have
a desire "to make it work" and play. I really do prefer original finishes with its
"patina" - as long as it looks presentable. Leaving something "as found" is not
my goal as my desire to stabilize and clean it up, remove the rust, paint the
power transformers back to their original black, etc.

I guess my vote is a non-purist - make it work, stuff the cans, and just replace the
paper capacitors - but save the replaced components just in case someone
really cares.

Carl

Let's keep up this conversation and hear from people with differing points of view.

The following letter from Michael Bennett-Levy is posted on the Early Television Foundtation's website. It talks directly to the topic at hand.



Work once done cannot be reversed as a rule.

Pre-war TVs are very rare. To get one in to working order inevitably involves the replacement of some components, capacitors for a start. Modern capacitors are much smaller than old ones so one can hollow out the old ones and put the new ones inside them thus preserving the original look. Rewinding a transformer is probably acceptable but with both operations one has to 'put a soldering iron the set' and it is almost impossible to do so without leaving a trace - hence the restorer leaves a mark of his presence. Once a TV set is working then the tube has a limited life span. Pre- war tubes - especially the small ones suffer quite quickly from ion burn and replacement tubes are not plentiful to put it mildly. A set may work today with an acceptable brightness but then the set is 'only' sixty something years old and has probably not been used for fifty or more of them. What about when you and I are dead in another hundred years? What will be the historical importance of a pre-war TV set with many components changed and a burned out tube? Just as a piece of furniture design?

I've had a little over sixty pre-war TV sets through my hands since 1993. In all that number I only had two put in to working order (plus one that was already in working order from David Boynes). My experience in showing people my collection is that the experience is a mixture of nostalgia and historical and just seeing one pre-war set working for a few minutes crowns the experience for them. The analogy I think about is the Wright Brothers' Flyer in the Smithsonian in Washington. There it is hanging up the world's first powered aircraft still incredibly not yet even 100 years old! Presumably it could be got to work again and be flown but would one want to - for any reason? Thus it is with the TVs I possess. They are cleaned up as much as possible and mostly gleam - when dusted - but otherwise they remain many in the same electrical state as when they left their manufacturers.

Each person must make up his or her mind as to whether they want to put a pre-war TV in their possession back in to working order. I would not dream to criticize that choice, but for me I always tried to buy 'untouched sets' and sold on the less perfect duplicates (such luxury! Now alas gone). When Arnold Chase asked me which TRK 12/120 I wanted, (he had about eight or ten in varying states) my response was to ask him to send me the most 'untouched'. He did. It had sixty years of dust inside and outside of it.

If the tube in your Cossor has a burned out filament but is otherwise intact and with a bright white phosphor does it matter? It may be a blessing in disguise because in 100 years the phosphor will still be white and the insides perfect. For all I know one or two of the sets in my collection may have burned out filaments, but I'll never know at least until they leave my hands.

...

I say restore , unless it was a one of a kind prototype then I would start to question it , not many people can turn a tv on and say its a 1930's set , as far as restuffing that's up to the restorer , you wont see the parts when the set is on display and restuffing them just makes it look original , often I see cars with altered radios or altered rims and that's a too each his own but I'd leave it original , too many I want to hook an ipod up when you can hook the ipod to a mini transmitter and tune it in on the original radio .
life is too short enjoy it
mike

Yep. A perfectionist collector is an antique preservationists worst enemy. And while most vintage electronics aren't considered true antiques at this point, they may well be to some folks in the not so distant future.

Agree here too. By re-stuffing, all you've achieved is the equivalent of a faux finish under the chassis, all in an attempt to "have your cake and eat it too"(see above perfectionist comment).:D There's simply no substitute for leaving a significant historical item in it's "as found unmolested condition". I'd venture a guess that 2 out of 3 TV collectors today are primarily in the hobby for the enjoyment of doing their own electronic and cabinet restorations, in which case we're not doing future collectors any favor by restoring every set in our collection to a pristine finish and working condition. All that being said, IMO we TV and radio collectors are an endangered species, so I say do your best and enjoy them however you see fit.

Just remember, it's only "original" once.