I doubt if this will ever happen again!
 

Last night I decided to go out and see what I might find "picking" in my old neighborhood. After finding a decent lawnmower I stopped and looked at a early nineties Magnavox a few streets down. Nah, I have no one that needs a tv right now and am running out of space in the garage for that stuff...
Then two streets over I slam on the brakes and said "oh my god" My son is by then thinking I ran over something or someone! There it was, A CTC 5! with stand! I had it loaded in about 2 seconds and sped home! It's complete with no broken or missing parts even. It has an old piece of masking tape with 40.00 written on it, What the story is on this set I will never know, Just glad it didn't sell and they set it out on the curb!

WOW ! :banana: What are the odds? I guess now "YOU DA MAN!" If not, your at least one very happy camper. Congratulations :thmbsp:

Now you've got em in both colors! :D

Nice score!

---

Here is a pic of the inside, The crt has a 56-43 date code and is good!
It makes me a bit sick to think it may have been crushed had I or someone else that knew what it was not grabbed it.
Seriously, I thought those days were over of finding this stuff... Sheesh, It's 2004 already! The last 5 or 7 that I saw had to be in 1980...

WOW! Cap, have you been taking TV finding lessons from Doug? :lmao:

I'm sure you'll be diggin inside this baby before the day is over... and of course we'll be waiting to find out that it just needed a tube replaced to make it play! :D

Wow....I can hardly wait to see it runnin'...Congrats on an unbelievable find...This is almost "Dusenberg-in-a-barn" kind of stuff.-Sandy G.

Man Dwight.... COOL!!! Hope it doesn't take much to get going, and can't wait to see the pix of it running.

Woah!

I thought my find the other day was a good one!

Hey - I guess it was a garage sale leftover. Though, seriously, $40 wouldn't be bad for it either!

Is that the much maligned 'super' chassis, though?

In any case, that's a cool find. What could top it? A 4 or a 15" set, maybe?

In any case - guys - I'm telling you - these sets are OUT THERE still!!! Don't give up!

(hey - the CT-100 count is over 100 already, I hear. for something that sold poorly and was then recalled, that's NOT BAD!)

Ok guys, Here's what I have so far. After a soft start the 'lytics are cool and the tv actually produces a picture!

Damn! That's cool as shit! You got color, almost a full raster, and tuning in stations! Ya know, with minimal work on it, i bet you achieve lolli-pop color on that baby! :D

Too Cool
 

"If you put it on the curb, they will come."
That "Aldrich" Special model chassis can deliver a very good picture. My first color set ever was this model. If that is the original RCA optional stand you have a super rare combination. The iceing on the cake would be the UHF tuner option. Great find.

Where is my $40. :D

I call $80-80-80 !!!<grin> Man, what an UNBELIEVABLE find !!You must have had your hat on right THAT day...-Sandy G.

Yes, It is the original RCA stand that came with it. Maybe I will get lucky and find one in the trash for my other CTC 5 model in the blonde finish.(Yeah, Right!)

To think that was so close to me!!!! I had just about given up on local pickin's, and you show me this!!! As I've told you before, I found almost that exact same set, in the same neighborhood, around 1985-ish. The old lady came outside when we picked it up, and told us the set came from a local bar. I hauled it to a friend's house on a wagon and we plugged it in.

It produced a horizontal line.

Even then I knew if the CRT was good, it could be fixed. However, that was about the last ime I ever hung-out with that friend, and I never saw the set again. :worried:

Good show old man!

OK...clue in the clueless. What's special about this set?

Well it's a very early color set (1956?) with only the CTC4 and CTC2 (i.e. CT-100) before it.
They are very hard to come by and usually cost quite a bit if you do find one.
Finding one by the curb is probably a once in a lifetime happening at this late date. Having it work at all is astounding!

This one looks like it still has the metal/glass CRT?

That's incredible!

Are you sure the garage sale was over, they weren't just inside getting a sandwich or something? :lmao: :lmao:

What a great find. and it works. the stand is neat. some of the rcas had a antenna built into the stand but not sure if they did it with color sets.
the super chassis is a good runner.
{ lolli pop????}

There was a guy on ebay recently selling picture tubes and old tv's and he always babbled about the excellent "lollipop" color that they had and how he "cut his teeth" on all the old roundies. What this meant to me is he must have been chewing on them instead of repairing them!

The '5' is special to me because its the oldest color set I have. It is amazing that they work as good as they do, considering the techology at the time. Hats off to the engineers on the RCA staff in the 50s. RCA really pushed color that year, at least going by print ads I've seen. I'll agree, to find a CTC-5 today, on the curb, is amazing! Heck, I still have to pinch myself that I found mine 10 years ago. (and it cost me a hundred bucks)

Well here it is back on the stand with the tape removed from the glass. The tape had been on there a long, long time and took a razor blade and goo gone to remove! I decided to just do adjustments to the set as it has an acceptable picture now and I want to leave this one all original. I will only occasionally turn it on and keep the run time short. From what I can see, Only one tube has been replaced, This has to be a low hour set...

Man that's absolutely amazing! Finding a 5 on the curb... only one tube replaced... good 21AXP... nice looking condition... and it works! Hell even if you had to give them the 40 bucks for it... it still would have been more than worth it!

I bet this makes you drive around the old neighborhood more often! :D

Around here you usually find something that is worn out and beat up or little used and clean. There is no in between for whatever reason...

Doncha wish sometimes this old stuff could talk? I'd bet this old guy could tell us some stories..but looks like he's had a good life w/the exception of when he was put out on the curb.But then, this wonderful, nice man come along & rescued him.Originally, only watched by a little old lady on Sundays to see the "Wonderful World of Color", right after church....<grin>-Sandy G.

Hey Captain,

As a member noted, it might be fun to check with the previous owners and see what the history of this set is. Maybe there's some original paper work stashed in a drawer somewhere. Also, there's a nice brocure picture and a discription of the Aldrich that mentions the available matching stand. Check the CTC-5 section of my web site.

http://community.webtv.net/stevetek/StevesCT100

It's funny that you mentioned that, I went over to the house I got it from tonight just to see what the story was (I had to know!) The lady answered the door was suprised that it got picked up! She said she offered it to every one she knew and no luck.
Here is the story, She and her husband saw it at an estate sale a few years ago and bought it because it "looked cool and worked" They wanted to do a 50's room in the basement but another baby came along and that project never happened. So the RCA sat in the garage until the hubby just got sick of looking at it and put it on the curb!
They couldn't remember where they got it from or any history on it, Not even a manual or old sales bill...
They weren't even sure if it was from the fifties!

Congrats on the find! Looking at the set makes me appreciate those old NON-BONDED crt's. No ring aroung the edge. The only thing I drug home from 2 streets away was a CTC-38 with a toasted flyback and busted neck. But, it was chock full of Radio Shack lifetime guaranteed tubes (6JE6, 6DW4, 6GH8's, 3A3, etc).

Bloody awsome find mate!!!! :D :thmbsp: That is a great find, and it working is a bonus!!!! Good one!!! :D

Closest I found to an old TV over here in Australia when I go junk hunting on the streets is the front face of a late 50s/early 60s B&W set which was probably an early Philips, Astor or AWA brand, I didn't take it as at the time it wasn't on my priority of wants, I was looking for vintage videotapes containing early Aussie shows of the 70s at the time. One of my luckiest finds on the street however was a 1979 PYE VCR1780 (Philips N1702) VCR machine, well actually my mate found it and took it back to his shed and called me up and I have it in my collection, the video heads are stuffed unfortunately but I just keep it as a collectors piece.

Anyways glad you got your CTC-5 displaying a picture and best of luck with the restoration on the set.

oooooooooooooooh...............
 

Seeing this CTC5 is just so amazing ....here in Oz we didn't even have TV when that baby was built....and didn't get colour TV until 1975!

Just the idea of watching Dinah Shore or fred Astaire in LIVING COLOR in the 50s is mindboggling!!!

'bout the best I have ever managed from the curb is a laser printer...