Did Muntz have a color roundie in 1971 ?

[kramden66]

From a newspaper tv guide , it is a drawing but the screen looks like a roundie

[timmy]

Thought roundies were done by 68.

[John Adams]

I think they stayed around a few more years. I think Philco kept offering one. They could a prior year chassis going. Offer a low price in a black metal cabinet for under $300 to get people in the showroom.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by John Adams

I think they stayed around a few more years. I think Philco kept offering one. They could a prior year chassis going. Offer a low price in a black metal cabinet for under $300 to get people in the showroom.

I had a Sears Silvertone roundie, a trash find in the 1970s, which was in a black metal cabinet and which, to my amazement at the time, worked as soon as I got it home, the only problem being a broken push-pull on-off switch. These sets were, as you mentioned, probably priced as low as they were simply to lure potential buyers into the store.

I did not realize, however, until I read your post, that Philco was also offering the same type of TV, probably within the same price range. Like my Silvertone, this Philco may well have been a roundie in a black metal cabinet, VHF only, with no high-end features.

[Electronic M]

I think elsewhere on VK someone proved Muntz was selling roundy color until 1973.

Zenith and RCA which combined held 80% of the TV market stopped selling roundys in 1966, but brands like Philco kept making them in 68 and later as loss leader sets to attract customers to give showrooms upsales opportunity. By 1970 I doubt there were more than 3 brands that sold a roundy. If my Sam's were complete it would be interesting to search all color sets between 1966 and 74 and see how many roundy chassis designs wer out there, who made them, and how they tapered off.

[consoleguy67]

Zenith still had roundy color tvs in 1967.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

I had a Sears Silvertone roundie, a trash find in the 1970s, which was in a black metal cabinet and which, to my amazement at the time, worked as soon as I got it home, the only problem being a broken push-pull on-off switch. These sets were, as you mentioned, probably priced as low as they were simply to lure potential buyers into the store.

I did not realize, however, until I read your post, that Philco was also offering the same type of TV, probably within the same price range. Like my Silvertone, this Philco may well have been a roundie in a black metal cabinet, VHF only, with no high-end features.

I had one of the last Silvertone roundies, built in approx 1967. It was a plain metal cabinet, Warwick built, cheapie transformerless chassis with the circuit boards mounted on a plastic frame. The color circuit used a 10LE8. The CRT was made by Sylvania and was bad, as well as the flyback. It got scrapped!
The Philco wasn't as bad, as it used a chassis similar to the better models. The CRT was made by Philco and not very long lived!
BTW, all TV sets sold in the US had to be equipped with UHF, whether it was used in the area or not, Since May of 1964!

[AlanInSitges]

Yeah, that Muntz was a Roundie. It had a stereo phono and AM-only radio. I seem to remember they went through a rebranding or change of distributor about the time this was on the market.

[KentTeffeteller]

Philco-Ford kept a loss leader Roundie available into 1971-1972. That last chassis also incorporated a few transistors. CRT varied as to supplier. Some of the late ones were Philco, some used RCA leftovers. Actually a decent set. Made a good picture and was reasonably reliable. Sold for around $300. A good economy set.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by kramden66

From a newspaper tv guide , it is a drawing but the screen looks like a roundie

I know that Muntz offered that set as late as 1970.
The $298 special was a real interesting set to behold!
It had a burnt-orange spray painted cabinet, a single play kiddie turntable for the stereo, an AM radio that had an autodyne circuit, one tube and crystal diode and a 12AX7, 2 50EH5 outputs. Two 6" speakers, one mounted on the bottom left and one mounted on the right side. The TV was the CTC15 clone.
It wasn't meant to sold, just displayed!
BTW, all Muntz roundies used Zenith 21FJP22's. Left overs!

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by KentTeffeteller

Philco-Ford kept a loss leader Roundie available into 1971-1972. That last chassis also incorporated a few transistors. CRT varied as to supplier. Some of the late ones were Philco, some used RCA leftovers. Actually a decent set. Made a good picture and was reasonably reliable. Sold for around $300. A good economy set.

My uncle bought one in 1968, from the Goodyear Service store in downtown Milwaukee. He remarked that he wasn't going to pay $600 for a set, that one for half the money was just as good.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by dieseljeep

I had one of the last Silvertone roundies, built in approx 1967. It was a plain metal cabinet, Warwick built, cheapie transformerless chassis with the circuit boards mounted on a plastic frame. The color circuit used a 10LE8. The CRT was made by Sylvania and was bad, as well as the flyback. It got scrapped!
The Philco wasn't as bad, as it used a chassis similar to the better models. The CRT was made by Philco and not very long lived!
BTW, all TV sets sold in the US had to be equipped with UHF, whether it was used in the area or not, Since May of 1964!

UHF TV tuning would be of no use today anyway since the FCC screwed up the TV channels ten years ago, replacing them with this digital monkey business. I am finding it increasingly difficult to find my area's local TV stations, since they are not listed anymore the way I am used to. For example, Cleveland has had channels three, five, and eight as long as I can remember; three was NBC, five was ABC and eight was CBS. Then along came this digital nonsense ten years ago, and I lost the CBS TV station in Cleveland, which had been moved from channel eight to channel nineteen more years ago than I care to remember. I still think of the Cleveland television stations being on channels 3, 5, 8 and cannot for the life of me get used to this monkey business of channels 3.1, 5.1, 8.1, and 19.1, not to mention other channels I have never heard of here (I have lived in this area my entire life). Why on earth didn't the FCC leave well enough alone, rather than fouling up the stations so no one can find them anymore? I remember when Cleveland only had three channels and TV sets all had a big knob that clicked to select those channels. I miss those days, more than I can say. I don't care for the reception problems these UHF stations are causing (and have caused for years). I wish the TV stations had been left the heck alone, as this reshuffling of the channels is causing me more trouble and annoyance than I care to think about. I understand they went through the same monkey business in Detroit some years ago, when that city's FOX and CBS television stations were swapped in the same manner as Cleveland's eight and 19.

However, I don't think Detroit has near the reception problems we had (and still have to this day) when their CBS went to a UHF channel from the VHF channel it had been on for years. The way it is in the Cleveland area, especially near Lake Erie, where I live, some of the stations either do not reach here at all or, if they do reach here, the signal is so weak it is unwatchable.

One channel which absolutely does not reach my area without a very large antenna or cable (I have what Spectrum refers to as "streaming" service; however, they tell me I no longer have cable since switching to that service) is channel 19, the station CBS was moved to (from channel 8) in Cleveland more years ago than I care to remember. Since that station is (and has been for some time) the northeast Ohio affiliate of the CBS television network, which is an important network in this country, it should reach every square mile of this area with no exceptions. Channel 19 has been fooling around with a network of translator stations to fill in the spots where the station's real signal does not reach, well or at all; this may get the station's programming to these areas but it isn't the right way to do it, not by a long shot. The station should have either put up a much better transmitting antenna than the one it is currently using or increased its transmitter power from its present power level. (To make matters even worse, the station's transmitter was all but destroyed by lightning six months after the station went on the air in 1985; the station's signal was never the same after that.) Before DTV, channel 19 had a power level of well over three million watts; then, when DTV came along and messed up everything, that power level went down drastically, which cut out a heck of a lot of the station's coverage area and forced people either to get cable or put up a large antenna.

Good grief! As I said, I wish Cleveland's TV stations had been left strictly alone, with NBC on channel 3, ABC on channel 5 and CBS on channel 8. Ever since the new UHF stations came in, they have caused more trouble from a reception standpoint, especially in areas far removed from the city of Cleveland, than most of them are probably worth, with the exception of channel 25, which is the PBS affiliate and has been in Cleveland since 1965. The reception of this channel is terrible in most areas, but since it is meant for viewing in northern Ohio's schools and not for mainstream viewing, the station's owners probably don't see that as a problem.

Again, sheeeeesh.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by KentTeffeteller

Philco-Ford kept a loss leader Roundie available into 1971-1972. That last chassis also incorporated a few transistors. CRT varied as to supplier. Some of the late ones were Philco, some used RCA leftovers. Actually a decent set. Made a good picture and was reasonably reliable. Sold for around $300. A good economy set.

Getting back to Philco, I had a Philco-Ford badged 15" Toshiba portable that was the same as the Sears model, a 1968 model. I also had a GE PortaColor that had the Philco-Ford badging.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by KentTeffeteller

Philco-Ford kept a loss leader Roundie available into 1971-1972. That last chassis also incorporated a few transistors. CRT varied as to supplier. Some of the late ones were Philco, some used RCA leftovers. Actually a decent set. Made a good picture and was reasonably reliable. Sold for around $300. A good economy set.

I wouldn't call this TV an "economy" set, at least not in color TV's early years. I don't think anyone could touch a color TV for under $500 until the '70s or so and all three networks, not just NBC, were carrying full color programming. NBC had been showing 100-percent color programming from about the '60s or so as a television network, and still does to this day. I have yet to see a b&w program on NBC, except for the occasional monochrome photograph or film clip on NBC's nightly news broadcast.

NBC's relentless advertising as "the full color network" may well have helped the sales of color TV sets, but color sets were still very expensive until at least the 1980s or so. My grandmother bought a Sears Silvertone 25-inch color console TV when she retired in 1969; however, I think she must have paid well over $300 for it, as color TV was still very new and the sets were not flying off store shelves at the time.

[John Adams]

In Fall, 1956 RCA was advertising color tv starting at $499. Several ad’s in Life Magazines I have recently been reading. I sold Zenith in the 60’s and we had a 21” in a black cabinet for $399 around 1966.
I have seen the 2 page ad by NBC around mid 1956 in Life. A real push for color tv.