I'm surprised they did not tout the mechanical enclosure to keep your kids from touching the B+ rails. :D

I did some bench work for a Muntz dealer in the late 60's. The roundies had Zenith CRT's in them. They were EIA 1101 CRT's with the Zenith logo on the base. They tried to remove the logo but you could see traces of it. The chassis was pure CTC15 clone.
The set shown in the commercial is a model 1581, which had a cheapie Japanese AM only radio and some kind of a low-end record changer. An Admiral Ensign or a Maestro IIRC.
The Muntz dealers were a bait and switch operation. :thumbsdn:

Not surprising the RCA clone chassis. I have a 1967 Airline rectangular color made by Muntz and it too is an RCA clone.
I wonder if any of those last-gasp Muntz roundys still exist?...I'd imagine with how cheap they were most were probably scrapped upon post-warranty failure.

Solid State Philco roundie?!?! Now I need to find one! Those have to be pretty rare now....

Ah, It's a hybrid, still WANT!

Recall walking into a Ward's store many years ago and right at the entrance was that very $258.00 color set in a display. Even then, I marveled at the no frills black fiberboard cabinet and the gray plastic control panel w/gray plastic knobs.

-Steve D.

I had a 23v Philco from that "SS" era and it was a very good set, one that I should have kept. They don't have a ton of transistors but some. Philco had set up its own crt plant around that time & I suppose it was easy for them to crank out a bunch of those 21" tubes. I found one (the crt, not the set) but it was a dud. Zenith bought the crt plant in the early 70's if I remember right.

Don Lindsley posted about that Blue Bell, Pa. plant once but I'm not sure if it was Philco's CRT plant.

After Ford sold Philco to GTE in 1974, I think Ford kept the Blue Bell plant for aerospace and car radios, known as Aeronutronic and later Ford Aerospace.

Why, yes, a whole 43% brighter. "Brighter than what?" is my question... A burned out 1961 Muntz black and while CRT? LOL!


Those ads are priceless. Each has their own charms.. The Muntz is the best deal of the three, but if I were choosing back in the day, I would have gone for the Wards set.

I saw "solid state signal system", and I think it meant the tuners and maybe the IF and detectors are solid-state.

The Philco hybrid chassis was one of the first heavily transistorized
sets going back to the mid 60's. Very good chassis & a great
pix with the right CRT. IIRC only had sweep tubes & video out.
Would have overlapped roundies so not surprised if they were
in some.

73 Zeno:smoke:
LFOD !

I have an old Sams field service guide that covers the years 1967 to 1969.
The Philcos shown have 18 tubes including the round tube chassis. The only solid state is the tuner and IF strip.
They didn't use a HV regulator and the 23's were hard on flybacks. :thumbsdn: