I would say for a good one--at least $ 500. a NIB one that TESTS good(after all a NOS one can be bad too), $700 or so..

NOS/NIB try $1200, that was the last price I was quoted from someone who has one. A tested good one that has been used anywhere up to $600 depending on life test results. I won a tube on eBay recently for $225 that initially tested pretty low, but came up to pretty good after a Sencore cleaning cycle.

I was offered a NIB 21AXP22 for around a grand, but I've since sold all of my color roundies.

Let's just get into our Way-Back Machine and go to 1956 and head to Chicago. Allied will sell you a new 21AXP22 for $142.10. I wish I had bought a few, but I was only 9 at the time and it would be 6 years before I even started working on TVs and 10 years before we got our first color TV (a Zenith 25" rectangular)

"Only" 142 in 1956 dollars.... that is OVER 1200 today..actually from 1240-2000 depending on your way of measurement !!

Why do you think people buy Super chassis 5's? They're likely doing the same thing I always do, robbing the CRT and putting a dud in it because no one wants a Super-5. Most of the time you can pick up a complete set for less than a loose jug, there was a free Super-5 in Texarkana just last week for example. If that set had a good tube, that's a decent chunk of change saved on restoring a more valuable set.

I guess that makes them the four door base model sedan of the TV world.

More like the Yugo of TV land. I'm sure there are people out there that like them, it's just that the Deluxe chassis was better so that's what you see people collecting. Even that chassis isn't so great with its lack of HV, but at least you get better color demod.

Just curious, where do you find this stuff? Craigslist? I don't want to ever miss something like this should it pop up near me.

Ancient Chinese secret. :smoke:



Nothing personal, but if I'm looking for something as well why would I tell anyone else? I've been screwed on deals before because unethical people would contact someone I was already on the way to see, not saying you would do that but I'm also not about to make things harder on myself than they already are. Example: I picked up a pair of Philco roundies recently. The guy agreed on a price with me over the phone, I began my 6 hour drive. When I was less than 45 minutes away, the dude calls me back spouting off some ridiculous number that some guy supposedly said he'd pay and that's the amount he NOW WANTED FROM ME.

I about throat punched the mf'er through the phone, but in the end I had to swallow a pill all because someone thought they could put one over on me.


On the flip side if there's something I can't pick up for one reason or another, I'm very good about passing those alerts on to people on the various forums. If you look at my posting history, you'll see what I mean. Collecting is all about the thrill of the hunt for most people, if I started giving away all my secrets there's be nothing left for me to hunt...like a dumb fisherman that tells his buddies about a great fishing hole he always goes to, we've all heard that one.


Best of luck in your personal quest!

Nick,

Owned several CTC-5 Super chassis sets over the years. I think they get a bad rap. When properly set up they produce fine color images. I've also owned several CTC-5 Deluxe series sets. Takes a discerning eye to tell the difference.
The higher quality cabinets of the Deluxe series is another story.

-Steve D.

Regardless of how well they can work parts gotta come from somewhere, usually the lesser sets wind up getting cannibalized to fix the better stuff.

Even with B&W sets the big, "undesirable" combo units wind up as parts donors.

I just hope that 5 in Texarkana went to a "good home" either to be refurbished or used to refurbish another one. I PRAY it did NOT go to an "up(DOWN) cycler".. Like I said before...had it been ANYWHERE NEAR me--300-400 miles away...I WOULD have gone for it. but Texas is WAAYYY too far away !!

Fair point. I'll stick with Craiglist for now.

I never saw a good picture on an RCA CTC27,31 even with a new CRT. They seemed to have a funky color demod circuit. The colors seemed like pastels to me, not real rich color.
I know, they were similar to the CTC19/24, but the color was better on those.