I believe the Philco Seventeener was the successor to the Briefcase 19. The latter was made around 1961 and was VHF only. I had a Briefcase 19 (a trash find in the early 1970s) and liked it; good picture, good sound and all, although the VHF antenna in the handle was missing (both dipoles had been broken off). The lack of UHF didn't bother me at the time, as my area near Cleveland, an eastern suburb, only had three TV stations on channels 3, 5 and 8. However, my set gave me excellent service, serving as my main watcher when my Sears Silvertone roundie color set quit in 1973 (video output tube socket broke out of a PC board
) until I found another color set, a Toshiba-built Silvertone 16-inch rectangular, in 1976.
I don't know anymore what drove me to get rid of that Philco, as it was still working well even after I left where I was living from 1972-'75 (long story and OT) and returned to my home town. However, I never again saw another set like it, and probably never will again in this age of flat-panel HDTV, unless such a set turns up at an estate sale or yard sale somewhere, on eBay or CL. These older sets are not exactly rare (yet), but one doesn't see them every day, either.