If one had a large couch and a coffee table just over leg distance away, then I'd imagine that someone would put a 7" set on the coffee table propped up so the screen was aimed at the viewer's faces.

As soon as I saw egrand's photo of the 13 people watching the TV set, I suspected this TV was either a 7 or 8 inch Motorola, by the vertical label on the right side of the back, plus the shape of the top vents and a rabbit ears of Motorola design.

To verify this, I pulled up the scans directly from the original photographs that were used to print the pictures on the bottom of page 106 and verified that this is a 1948 7 inch VT71 Motorola in red mahogany (or a slight possibility that this is the similar 1947 set.) There is an unused photograph of the father carrying the set home, that clearly shows the front of the set.

Kamakiri, I don't think you will find a picture of more than 13 people watching a 7 inch set!

With that said, I think the 16 empty beer bottles might have helped many of them see the image more clearly . . . .

:) Let's not forget a couple of things here ;

First , is that we had magnifiers that stood on the table right in front of the picture tube that made the image quite a bit larger and thus viewable from somewhat further away .

Second , we were not expecting 1080DPI HDMI quality , we were just darned happy to have moving pictures to go along with the radio . In some cases , this lack of clarity was actually a good thing in that every Zit , Mole , or Wart wasn't there in scarily clear well rendered colors ......

Which is one fact that I hadn't really considered....the programming was geared towards sets of this type. Meaning, that there was only so many people or so much information on the screen at one time with studio adjusted contrast and lighting levels to make things appear clearer on smaller sets without having to be right on top of them.

Much of today's programming is of course geared towards HDTV, which can display as much as you can fit on the screen with perfect clarity. Not so sixty plus years ago.

Since my wife passed out in the living room tonight in front of our 46" HDTV, I shut the set off, put my 7" Motorola on the coffee table and watched Law and Order SVU. Perfect distance. Then she woke up and asked me to turn the big one on again :sigh:

Interesting to think about though. We see all kinds of pictures of 10" and larger sets worked into a living room situation, but rarely if ever a 7".

Consider this too......perhaps they were used more for special programming (a movie) and pulled out for such things as a family treat, or they were made particularly to carry to friends' houses for larger get togethers or to watch a ball game with your buddies. I guess that would explain the logic of expensive (for the day) televisions being enclosed in suitcase designs.... the reason for which has always sort of eluded me.

I dunno.....Dragnet didn't go on TV until 1952. By then screen sizes had increased.

Definitely in the late 40's the most common shows were stage based variety ones, i.e. Milton Berle. They didn't seem to use close ups much.

I think a good point was made about people being used to radio. I'll bet they listened to the TV as much as watched it back then.

A lot of those small sets were sold with stands. I'll bet most people used them like shown in the photo. It was just moved into the middle of the living room when used. At that time, TV was only on in the evenings, so it would be moved out of the way during the day. People didn't consider them a piece of furniture yet, or plan their living rooms around them like they did when larger screen sets came out.

I have a 5" JVC :)

http://s29.postimg.org/cyg2zujqv/DSCF2085.jpg

By that time though, we can assume that the owner of your set had at least one other set, probably a color console in the living room. And though obviously meant for transport from place to place, there was a much different dynamic in 1948 when the suitcase set was likely the only TV that the owner had.

When you look at the amount of suitcase portables sold (and there is no shortage of them today), one wonders what the plans were for such sets versus say the wood table models. People didn't travel as much in the late 40s as they did in the mid 70s, certainly not to the point where television was such a central part of their lives that they wanted to bring it with them.

Maybe I'm going overboard on that whole line of reasoning, but it's fun to think about.

Think I've read-Likely HERE- That the 3" Pilots were marketed as "2nd sets" & to well-heeled College students. Given the number of survivors-Altho they seem to be a bit more rare now than they were 10 yrs ago-HOWEVER they were marketed, it was successful... Anybody know how long they were in production ?

People indeed got dressed better in those days, but here is a funny fact: I don't know if something like this happened in the United States or other countries, but here in Brazil, in the early days of television, lots of people - specially women - put their best clothes on to watch TV, because they believed that the people on the screen could see they!!!!

I use a TS-18 with the 7 inch tube pretty regular. In the kitchen is a 3 inch JVC 3050. I sit about 7 feet from the Motorola and can see it OK. It does not have a great "wife acceptance factor" for watching. That is left to a 25 inch BPC sharp.

My oldest uncle bought the first TV in the family, a 7" Tele-tone. He put on one of those oil-filled magnifiers on it.
My mother remarked: "We'll wait a little while to buy a set. It has to be better than that. The picture's blurry and dark." :sigh:

I have no problem watching TVs that size. In fact as I write this, I'm watching the news on a 9" Sony Trinitron; 12 feet across the room.

Charles

Well, I COULD watch my 2" Philco Safari from across the room in my office, If I had my agile modulator hooked up..But that's sorta "Cheating", since they were DESIGNED for that..

The Friday Night Fights
 

Being born in 1947 I have vivid memories of my first television viewing experiences.

I was somewhere between 2 and 3 years old. Our family didn't have a set until 1951 when they purchased the Halicrafter 820 you see in my avitar.

A good friend of my father, Sam Sapaznick, already had a small screen tv set. It was a 7 incher but I can't recall exactly what brand it was.

SO......Every Friday night we would all go over to Sam's home for a gathering of several families to watch boxing on "The Friday Night Fights" which was sponsored by "Gillette Blue Blades"

The set up of the room was as follows: Dining room table was removed from the dining room. The tv set sat on top of an old fashioned china sideboard that was about 6" higher than a kitchen counter. IN front of the sideboard were 2 rows of kitchen and dining room chairs placed in curved rows, one behind the other and stagered like theater seats would be. Front row was probably no more than 6 feet away from the sideboard. All the kids sat on the floor in front of the sideboard looking up at about a 45 degree angle at the little tv screen several feet above our heads.

Watching tv was a big time social event in the early days of television, when the vast majority of homes still did not have a set. The host would prepare snacks for everyone and there would of course be plenty of Milwaukee's finest for the adults and soda for the kids. When the show came on, the lights in the room were turn off and we sat in the dark watching this tiny little screen. It was exciting! Live boxing from Madison Square Garden, every Friday night.

Certain things in life make an impression on you that sticks in your mind all your life. Watching The Friday Night Fights at the Sapaznick home in the early days of television, was just one of those things that made an indelible impression on my mind when I was just a little kid. I also remember the first "Color tv" I ever saw in 1956 in the home of one of my fathers freinds. I guess I was born in the vangard of the television revolution and probably has something to do with being a collector/restorer today.

my son used to watch blues clues at lunch time on a 7" motorola suitcase roundie that was 3 or 4 feet away on top of the refrigerator , that went on for a while , he would call it the circle tv, funny thing is on that show or dora the explorer they would sometimes mention a color and say do you see the blue whatever it is or red whatever it is , it was kind of amusing to me because i thought is there anyone else watching this with no colors ?