How do you find sets in your area?
 

I would love to find a color roundie but I don't ever see anthing but bpc in the trash on my travels.I must say that this area(lower eastern shore of Maryland) is the worst area there is for finding old tvs. Another thing is I am required to work on Saturdays so I can't go to estate sales,garage or yard sales and the flea market on that day.I admit I don't get out much to look on Sundays either.I don't want to fill my house with sets as some of you do.I have enough jukeboxes,record players and stereo equipment for that. I've seen more jukeboxes within driving distance on ebay and craigslist than old tvs.
I admit when I got into jukes I kinda quit messing with old sets and gave them away(late 60s and early 70s tube and hybrid and working solid state tvs)The nonworking solid states and about 70 nonworking vcrs went to the landfill.

I kept this 1 57 Hotpoint b/w tv and I'm having fun working on it. I figured it's time to look for one of the sets I drooled over in the storage room at my high school vo tech electronics class. I almost got one a little over 20 years ago but someone came out and said to leave it alone and get off their property.Last roundie I seen in person until I went to Bryan Gadow's house one time to test some older tubes for a 30s Wurlitzer jukebox.

Good luck is all I can say.

I live in a hotbed of vintage TV's (Chicago), and I had to fight tooth and nail to get my hands on one. After I had completely given up, one basically fell into my lap from a Goodwill store, and then it was only because another collector couldn't afford it. My best advice is either save up your money to buy one from another collector, or just bide your time and one will eventually come to you. Round sets are getting very scarce, and people are not letting them go for cheap....

There are usually a few roundies at the auction at our Early Television Convention:

www.earlytelevision.org/2011_convention.html

I think it has to do with luck, I started looking and found one within 3 hrs made a call and owned it in minutes and picked it up the next day as I met moody in here I picked up another one from him the same day. Then ran into a Ct-100 for sale in person 3 days later. picked up 7-8 roundies since.I just looked and asked around paid some bucks too.
I didnt even think they existed when I first started looking and then after seeing this place I was stunned at the great appreciation they were getting.

color rondie
 

I can help you. I live in massachusettes and have 2 early zenith sets , a rca ctc10 or 11 will double check model and 2 ctc5 to sell. Send me a email.

Wow Goodwill! The Goodwills around here won't even take solid state tvs with turn knob tuners on them. "Too old can't sell em" I was told when I tried to donate them. Had to use freecycle to get rid of those sets.Now they don't even sell 45 rpm records.Either someone doing the taking in is rejecting them or someone working there is scarfing em' up or they're going directly to ebay.Probably both of the latter. Haven't seen one in Goodwill for a year. But that's another subject.For that matter no vintage electronics show up in my local Goodwill so I rarely have a reason to go in there anymore.Even Salvation Army just has BPC electronics anymore.

I would've thought the same, but the one here frequently has old tube stuff in it and it never stays for very long. Right after I picked up the CTC-9, I saw an old Maggie mono console.It was there for a whole 3 days before someone snagged it. Perhaps they make an exception at this store, because they know the stuff will move?

Tried to send you a pm but your storage limit has been exceeded.

color roudie
 

Folder empty try again.

Man, you guys who live near Chicago are lucky. That whole area over there is like a vintage electronics museum.

I've had some good luck with craigslist. My two color roundies I have now (the Zenith in the chinese cabinet and the remote control ctc-10 console) were both craigslist finds from when I lived in Los Angeles. And just a few months ago I picked up a nice 630ts on cl up here in MI.

I have to agree. If you go on Chicago's Craiglist there's around 10 pre-1990 sets. Plus, there's even a few big sellers on Ebay that live in the Chicago suburbs. There's even quite a few VK members on here from the Chicagoland area who are overrun with sets and would be glad to give you one if you need it.

JC, here is where my roundies came from:
CTC-5, got at Bargain Bill's flea market back in the mid-90s when he had that antique mall in back.
CTC-11, also the mid-90s, got it in Southern MD at the indoor flea market they have at the Hughesville Tobacco Auction.
CTC-12, got it off ebay, won it for $5, maybe 4 years ago. It was in Philadelphia.
CTC-15, from the town dump in the early 90s; picked up an Admiral roundie at the same time, long gone now.
I found a small CTC-15 combo in the mid-90s on the curb in Easton, MD but parted it out.
The Zenith I have came from an ad in the Sussex Guide that read "old TVs for sale", that was about 12 years ago.
I had another Zenith, which sampson has now, picked it up while on vacation in Huntington, WV about 7 years ago at a used furniture store.
I have an Admiral that turned up at the auction house up in Crumpton, MD, a guy I know saw it and called me up, asked what I was willing to pay-he bid and won it for me.

I think there are still some around here to be had, they just haven't come out of the woodwork yet. One thing I found curious, a couple years ago a guy came on here and mentioned having several early roundies that he intended to sell, and he gave an address of E.Shore of MD. I tried to contact him but no luck. No idea who he was or where.

If you stumble upon one and it's now exactly the type/size you want, let me know. Might be up for a trade. I'd like to find a Philco roundie myself. Or, you never know, my wife has a dream of owning a jukebox...

I was thinking along that line. I have a Rowe-AMI JAL that I may never have time to do anything with. The only main cosmetic issue is peeling chrome on the dome frame.(A common issue with aluminum plated with chrome stored in a damp place.It can be rechromed ie expensive,I was just gonna sand it down and paint it) Everything else is in nice shape.It is of course unrestored though I think I can get it up and running if you don't want to tackle the mechanism if I have the right motivation.(a roundie)I have the manual. It is the last of the AMI jukeboxes with any kind of mechanism visibility. Would trade for a nice roundie with a known good picture tube.RCA preferred as the cataracts can be removed with DRH on youtube's method.Thought I used to want a Zenith but I hate that the ugly cataract can't be removed as easily.

Pictures of one can be found on here:
http://www.pinballrebel.com/archive/ami/1963/1963.htm

In the 6-12 months following Katrina, 75% of the old sets still in greater New Orleans were on trash piles with the rest of someone's worldly possessions.

I've only come across about a dozen old sets since 2007, when I started looking, and got four of them. I found my roundie on eBay and drove to Mobile to get it. Everything else came from out-of-town. I have to say that the pickings seem slim in the deep South. My unscientific observation is that more stuff turns up in Florida than any other Gulf state.

---

I rarely find any old TV's in my immediate area. Sometimes, I'll place a "free pick-up of non working TV's" in the local paper and that usually generates a bunch of calls; but, I usually end up getting 20 BPC sets before something old comes my way. Garage/Estate sales and generally a bust and "old TV" to them is the 2002 silver durabrand that was just replaced by a flatscreen. I guess the most recent local vintage TV score for me was over a year ago when I found a Philco Safari in a flea market. Everything else mostly came from out of town. About a year or so ago, I placed an ad in the local paper that read, "WANTED: Od TV's, working or not, with knob style tuners that were made between the 1940's and early 1970's". You wouldn't believe the number of calls I received from people wanting to sell me their 3 year old Symphonic's and their '90's era Zenith consoles with weak CRT's. Believe me, it was real hard to keep from saying, "The ad says '40's-'70's, which means that I don't want your junk from the last ten years". The only set that I got as a result of that ad was a beat up late '70's 19" Zenith B&W.

Back in the '90's, I was finding tube and early SS TV's on a regular basis. Most of the tube sets consisted of '50's B&W consoles, '60's and '70's rectangular color console and portable sets, and portable B&W sets from the '60's and '70's. I remember bringing home 2 or 3 color roundie sets and one RCA 10" round screen B&W. Unfortunately, back then, I wasn't interested in saving old TV's. TV's were something for me to fix and sell so I could finance my antique radio collecting. And, at that point in time, I could sell just about any working TV that I got my hands on.

I think the reason old TV's were more common in the '90's is because there were still lots of people around who were old enough to own such a set. Now, many of those folks are no longer with us and their belongings have already been disposed of. Also, the early-to-mid '90's was a time when the last "daily driver" tube type TV's were taken out of service in favor of newer TV's.

I predict that in 10-15 years, it will be hard to find a '90's era TV, let alone anything from the '70's or before. Another thing to consider is that we live in a disposable society. Most of the people that I used to get old TV's from lived through the depression and they know how hard it is to buy something. When the old TV died, it went to the basement. When a cousin on my Dad's side passed away, they gave me 3 old TV's that were in her basement - An early '50's 21" Westinghouse B&W, an early '60's 17" RCA portable, and a mid '60's Motorola 23" color TV in a metal cabinet. I figure that when one TV went out, it went to the basement and was replaced by a newer set. Today, most people are certainly not going to save anything when it dies. In fact, their TV may not even have to die before they trash it. Just let something new come along and they'll go max out the credit card just so they can say "look what we have".

Same here only I was buying records and jukeboxes with the money.Those sets started taking up valuable storage space when nobody wanted them anymore. All they wanted was silver or black remote tvs. Then the bottom fell out on that when the prices got really low on those and flat screens were all the rage so I got out of the flea market business,gave all my tube type and hybrid portables to a fellow collector and gave away what I could of the working ss ones. The non-working ss sets went to the landfill along with about 70 non-working vcrs.

I've decided that moneywise and spacewise I'm full up on jukeboxes (The market is dying on those now except for highly desireable ones. Go figure.No more side money and jukes are getting cheaper.They were at their peak when I was buying.) and want to get back into a nice vintage tv but they're not out there anymore.

Yeah, and the flatscreens are constantly coming down in price. Soon, they'll be so cheap that no one will give you anything for a used one. Of course, that's assuming that you can find a used one that's actually worth repairing. I've heard many people talk about how common it is for caps to go bad; but, I haven't gotten lucky enough to find one of those. All the ones I find have expensive problems that I don't want to fix. At this moment, I have a 37" Sanyo LCD that my original intent was to fix and sell it. After spending $32 to replace one of the inverter transformers, it still had the same problem. Now, I could spend $50 on a new inverter board; but, I'm afraid it still wouldn't be fixed and I'd have over $80 in a POS that I couldn't do anything with. Even if I get it going, there's the chance that it will crap out in a day, week, or a month; and, the buyer will be jumping down my throat about it. As far as used TV sales, I need to just say that it was fun while it lasted and move on to something else. The only used TV I have for sale at the moment is an '84 19" Curtis-Mathes knob tuned color set. I finally let my flea market friend take it and I think he has $30 on it. He said a lot of people have looked at it; but, claimed they didn't have any money. I'll bet if it was an HD set for $30, they'd come up with some money in short order. Another woman expected a DTV converter to be thrown in and he told her that for the price he had on the TV, she could buy her own converter box. Another person was in shock that he wanted so much for such an old set and he told them that it was a working color TV and that they needed to go buy a new TV if that one wasn't worth $30 to them. After he told me all this, I told him not to come off the price and that if it didn't sell, I'd keep it for a spare TV. Unlike most people today, I don't have to have HD and I don't feel the need to "keep up with the Jones's". And, I don't care how old it is. If a working 19" color TV isn't worth $30; then, it's not worth my time to even fool with it. And, since most people have some sort of set top box (cable, satellite, or DTV), that old knob tuned TV will receive just as many channels as a new set. It's just that people want the "latest and greatest" and they want it for nothing.

Being in Texas, I agree with Andy. About the only place for anything vintage is the local CL. Sometimes it suprises me what shows up. Some of you have seen my posts with attached ads/links.

Lately, it's been pretty dry for TV's...

Actually, here's a couple but not anything really special...

http://dallas.craigslist.org/dal/atq/1968024741.html
Mid sixties RCA B&W.

http://dallas.craigslist.org/ftw/atq/1948775361.html
Early fifties something with missing knobs.

The second one is a Philco I'm pretty sure, though my definition of "Good condition" and theirs differ somewhat.

Agree with Audubon, Katrina finished off the area known as Lakeview where alot of the older sets were. I've been given a few and found one at a flea market (my T-933 Maggie).
My roundie came from Mark and Craters and Freighters brought it here untouched.
The most of one kind are the VT-71 Motorolas. I have seven of them. I got them when the Motorola distributor closed up and sold them to me.

When I'm able, I look for estate sales in Uptown, certain older parts of Metairie, River Ridge and the Aurora Gardens section of Algiers. Basically middle to upper-middle class sections that didn't flood. I've only scored one set from an estate sale though, the '72 hybrid Chromacolor. And it had an Evansville, Ind. address carved on the back - I guess that's where it originated.

I got my CTC-16 roundie from a TV shop closing - the same closing yielded a 12" Sony with no back (it survived a fire!), a Setchell Carlson 21" institutional BW set, and a 60's 19" Dumont B/W luggable. I got my CTC-40 by chance - a guy needed it fixed but didn't want to spend the money.

I got my (working!) portacolor from a trash pick - there's a post I made in the old A-K days about that find. I even picked up a spare set of knobs from a local company with old GE/RCA/Zenith parts.

Most of my curb finds in the last two years were 25-36" BPC sets, usually set out with the box from a recent HDTV purchase. I was grabbing the HDTV boxes for a dealer (seems some manufacturers want LCD/Plasma warranty sets returned in original packaging) and the BPC sets for scrapping.

Public Surplus.com has tons of BPC stuff, and the occasional oddity, like my CRT HDTV Panasonic set, and my ton of test equipment - some from the 60's.

The local thrifts now pooh-pooh CRT sets, so no luck there. I usually go in to try and find other goodies - like tube based organs, the occasional Heathkit or other odd test equipment, and my two best finds: a MIB Altec amp I bought for $4.98 and sold on the bay for $451, and a Sansui AU-11000 bought for 14.98 and sold for $416.

Strategies I'd suggest:
1. Visit and talk to TV repair shops. What they throw away, we sometimes want. Be willing to take everything, so you don't miss out. Leave them a card with a cell number you can be reached at. I've picked up sets in a blizzard, just to show I'm the one to call first.
2. Scour the thrifts - some charity thrifts cull their stuff and trash it immediately - that's the stuff we typically want.
3. CL and newspaper classifieds - sure, you have a lot of chaff, but occasionally the CT-100 pops up!
4. Even at my church, I let it be known I'm into the older stuff. The average age of our members is 63 years old, so they are the ones with the classic TVs. VFW's, KofC and other organizations with elderly folks might also be the honeyhole you are looking for.
5. Keep trash-picking! You never know...

Cheers,

I hardly ever buy radios or TV sets anymore...they come to me. Through the years I have casually mentioned my hobby to many different folks; now, several times each year, I'll get a call or a visit from somebody asking if I want an old set. In the last year I have ended up with: a Motorola VT-71, a Pace SSB base station CB with Astatic mic, a decent Craig 8 track player/recorder, a Sony "lollipop" crt Watchman, a Philco 38-7 console, a small Crosley tombstone, a box of radio tubes, an early 60s Philco console stereo, a gutted CTC-17 combo, an early 80s Zenith videocamera (pre-camcorder), 1 or 2 radios from the 70s, a BPC or two. Right now I need to make time to pick up a GE 25" table model from the early 80s, which might have the "blue" crt. Granted, some of these things I didn't want at all, and many I got rid of...but, people remembered me...and none of the above cost me a dime.

Ditto, with the exception of my CTC-16 roundie ($12, as it came with several new degaussing thermistors, taped to the CRT face!) and my Panasonic HDTV ($25, opening and closing bid on Public Surplus).

My wife also drops hints to her friends and occasionally one comes up that way - the latest was a working 1959 Zenith Radio. Mostly it's BPC stuff, but I'll take even that. I'm still waiting for an Atwater Kent or early Radiola to show up.

Even test equipment can be had for free. I've been the recipient of about a dozen 5" tube O-scopes (Eico, RCA, Heath, Sencore, Knight, etc) and a bunch of old military stuff, popular here due to the era when mil surplus sales were being held locally. But mostly, it's TV shops - if it isn't earning them money and is in the way, it gets given away. I got a RCA Isotap that way recently - it's the light duty job, perfect for audio.

Cheers,

I live in a small town (population 3245) in northeastern Ohio. Been here ten and a half years and have only seen two vintage TVs on the curbs to date (one small RCA b&w 12" portable from about 1980 and a 25" RCA Colortrak console from perhaps 1978), although there were two vintage console stereos just up the street from my apartment a year or so ago.

When I lived in Wickliffe, Ohio (east suburban Cleveland), I would see quite a few '50s-'60s vintage TVs and the occasional stereo console or standalone phonograph on the curbs every week or so, but that was then; this is now. I haven't been back there for over a year, so don't know how or if the situation has changed much -- or at all. However, I expected to see more CRT analog TVs on the curbs here after the DTV transition than I actually have seen. Folks here are either recycling their old sets, giving them away to relatives or friends, or, if they still work well, hanging on to them for use with VCRs or DVD players. However, I haven't seen any so-called BPC sets in the trash around here yet, unless they are or were in parts of this area I don't frequent very often. Some of the CRT sets may still be in their owners' homes in the attic or basement, gathering dust, while a new giant-screen flat panel graces the living room/family room/den.

I've got some old sets from the 70s and 80s mostly, they tend to pop up at the local thrift shops here and there. We have goodwill and depending on the management of the goodwill store some do not except old style UHF/VHF dial sets. I have seen them from time to time in some goodwills and i remember seeing an old quasar with the dials side by side instead up and down about a year ago and wish i would have bought the set. In the Salvation Armys i still see the old sets from time to time as well. I never see any old tube sets in thrift shops, but many people don't realize that it takes a minute for them to come on, nor most probably don't work right anyways, so i don't think they would even make it out on the shelves. I don't even see 8-tracks in the goodwills much anymore, as i did in the 90s when they were always flooded with them. I also collect Betamax VCRS and within the month i came across two which is surprising, one being at a Salvation Army, and the funny part about it is, I got them home and they work like new.. I noticed Goodwill and Salvation Army being flooded with the new recycled aged junk, I'm stating to feel like I'm in a used wal-mart. I remember we also had Saint Vincent De Pal thrift shops, but all have gone under here. Also check out the local area thrifts that donate to local charities, you may find something interesting in those non so popular thrifts..

How many of you collect 70s and 80s sets?

There's a few of us here that have some 70's and 80's sets.

I collect the little portables such as the Sony "Watchman" series with the lollipop CRT and other smaller pocket sets of the era. I concentrate mostly on CRT sets, but have a few LC display b/w and color sets.
These things hit the thrift stores (and eBay) in large numbers after the shut-off of full power analog broadcasting.
They don't take up much space, a decent collection can be stored in a shoe-box. :D
I posted some pix here:
http://www.videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=246309
It has been many years since I have seen a color "roundie" in a thrift store! :no:
Other collectors, eBay and occasional Craigs list are the most consistent sources these days.
jr