Reactions to old TVs
 

I thought this deserved it's own thread... What are some of the reactions you've had to your old sets?

Years ago I had a young lady (born in 1982) in my bedroom as a guest, :naughty: When we got into bed, she noticed my "eyeball" Zenith B&W set, and said "What is THAT?" I laughed and turned it on, after it warmed-up, she excalimed "OMG, that's a BLACK AND WHITE TV!" I said, "Come on, you've seen B&W TV before." to which she replied, "Yes, but never on an actual B&W TV."

For a while, I was using a 23" 1966 Rectangular Zenith color set that Doug gave me as a daily-watcher (before I had re-modeled the living room). I had a few friends from work over, and they just fell out laughing! One of the funniest guys said I was starting my own religion... H.A.A (Half-Ass-Amish) This probably had something to do with my lack of Cable TV, DVD player, and because my 200K 1993 5th Ave is the oldest car in the plant parking lot! The theory goes, you can have a TV, but it's got to be old. You can have a cell phone, but no color display, and so on. (I did finally get a DVD player)

Later, I moved the set over to a house I'm selling because I thought it looked cool in the knotty-pine basement.

http://eastsidehomes.5u.com/photo4.html

Many people have come through the house with kids, and some of them do not even recognize this large, wooden object as a TV! When their parents answer thier question "What's that?" The reply has often been "That's ugly" , or "That's stupid". (I'm not kidding. Most modern kids lead such sheltered lives that the presence of something even slightly out of the norm, like a wood cabinet or knobs, causes them to loose all perspective. These are generally the bratty, ill-mannered kids that have to be reminded NOT to kick walls, etc. There have been a SMALL number of well-behaved kids who do realize it's a TV. Their reaction is generally positive and curious. I even let those kids turn it on. No doubt these are the kids with a bit more IQ and better parents.)

Unfortunately, my house isn't big enough to have rarely used rooms (like a formal living room) but when I eventually get a larger home, I plan to set-up a big ol' roundie for occasional watching and to generally "F" with people.

Oh, man ! That's at least half the fun of having old radios & TVs-messing w/"civilians" minds when you turn 'em on.A goodly number of these kids have never seen a black & white TV, let alone anything else from the 1940s-when I flip on the '48 Admiral 7" bakelite, that floors 'em. So does the little Philco Safari-WOW !! That's Keeewwwlll ! Or the '48 3" Pilot-EVERYBODY wants one of those when they see it. (They really are cute little guys, after all.) I've had folks here from Argentina who about went ape over the Zenith roundie-& it don't even work. Apparently, they didn't have roundies in Argentina, or they were exceedingly rare. Another thing that floors people who come here are the sheer number of TVs & radios I have-maybe I really am a little "teched" in the head...But I do get a lot of "Gee, we had one just like that when I was a kid..." -Sandy G.

I took three of my sets to last year's company Christmas party (Andrea, 17" Sylvania and 14" RCA). The owner basically told me that nobody would give a shit. He was wrong. A few of the older people were reminising about when TV was good. Another asked me if tubes were still available. Another asked where the color sets were (this year, as in CTC-16). Overall, I got very positive response.

Right now, I don't have enough sets working to really show them off, and my place is still a clusterfart. At this time, I have 6 restored and total (excluding solid state RCA) of 16, plus several at my mother's place.

I had to call the plumbers on Tuesday and I was watching the 1963 Zenith round color set when they came...they remarked about my old radios and school bus collection but didn't say anything about the TV...I guess they thought it just fit in with everything else.

H.A.A.? Thats a good one! Might have to convert to that religion myself!

Last year at our town's hobby fair I set up a display of radios and tv's, including a 20s battery set, a display showing the progression from 01A's to compactrons to IC's...only one thing got much attention, though, and that was the Motorola VT71 playing Red Skelton. Mostly people wanted to know how this could be-maybe they thought somehow old tv's only pick up old tv shows, like the old wives tale that old radios will pick up old radio shows? I kept having to explain that there was a vcr hidden under the table. The fair is coming up again next week-I might take a '50 Philco 12". The volume is a little scratchy but I'll have it turned down, anyhow.

My wife loves showing off my collection to visitors-I always hope to get into a good discussion with folks but they pretty much just talk about the volume of the collection and thats all. Nobody wants to see anything demonstrated or hear the history of color television or anything fun like that. :(

Most young people around here think i am crazy. but they do show a interest in them. They ask me to turn them on and notice new ones i picked up.
My niece thought i had a new tv shoved in the cabnet. till i took off the back and showed the chassis to her. also they like to watch me work on them. {yes i was careful}. If the old electronics bug is in them it will come out.

Yeah, one of the most gratifying days I had was a couple years ago when my G/F's 12-yr-old niece wanted to "see your old radios". 10 yr old girl-old radios-Yeah this'll take about 3 minutes. Nope. "Turn that one on, what does that one do? Wanna hear that big 'un..." Then, she sees my TV-7 D/U tube tester. "What does THAT thing do? Well, show me. Show me again. Let me try. Get out of my way". Yes, boss... Young'un sat there the next 2 hrs & DEMANDED to test every tube she could get her mitts on. I'm sittin' there, dumbstruck. She figured it out pretty well. Ended up givin her a Philco 48-200 I had intended to keep. Only real problem is, she kinda knows the difference between "good stuff" & "junk"- & I can't pawn el cheapo junk on her at Christmas... Whadda you mean, giving me a Krako ?!? Why,you cheap old so & so....Kid's got the brass of about any 3 monkeys you want to name...but a lot of it's my own fault, I guess... Like I said, she's 12-and already makin' noises about What Kind of Car I'm gonna get her... Told her she could have the '73 Fleetwood if she'd keep it fed & clean...Got a REAL dirty look over that one...apparently, '73 Fleetwood Caddys aren't "kewl" amongst the jellybean set...-Sandy G.

Oh Krap, not another old bus nut!! Ya know. Gillig is in my area (about 30 miles south) and I saw the strangest bus built by them just last night. Overall it looked like an oversized school bus but had dual axles in the rear.....not just a tag axle but a powered one, and with dualies on both! I mean this thing was built for some giant loads!!!! It was painted army camouflage (not the official kind, more like what hippys and weirdos do) and was minus a lot of windows along the side (mostly only up front). Manual trans and loudish exhaust, but seem to have lots of power. Had to be from around the 60's or older. Just plain weird. But that's what caught my eye, and why I kinda liked it.

Here's a link to a site all about the famous custom pinstripper/custom car builder/artist Von Dutch:
http://www.mrsharkey.com/busbarn/vondutch/vondutch.htm

Anthony

Oh dear God !! The infamous, notorious Von Dutch !! Hadn't heard of him in years...Thx for the memories, Anthony !! -Sandy G.

Its always great when you can show someone an old TV to prove them wrong. When you talk about old tvs, most people think about either 1950's b+w or those junk 1980's taiwan tvs. Many dont think about the early color tvs. Ive talked with lots of folks who had color tv back in the 60's. All they said was "cool looking tv, but the picture was crap" I think they forgot how good those sets were. I do alot of repair work on the side for other people so there are always customers walking into the basement of my home so they can see all these old tvs.

First reaction: Why do you have all of these tvs?
Next: "you can only watch one at a time, so why have all of them"

Turn one on and show them and they are totally blown away at the sharp color picture.

In fact, last week I brought a 1965 rca victor 19" b/w portable "sportabout" set to work so everyone could watch the bears game. I was shocked that there were no smart a$$ remarks made about the set. Everyone thought it was too cool to watch a b/w set from the 60's that still worked! (with a good picture as well).

I think this same reaction applies to any vintage equipment. I cut the lawn with a 1961 lawnboy 3050 lawnmower. People that past the house slow down to see what Im cutting the lawn with. Others will actually stop and comment "man, I havent seen one of those in 30 years and it still runs!"

When it comes to cars, you always get a thumbs up or a honk when driving down the road but I think the best reactions are when people see the kind of stuff they almost totally forgot about like tvs, lawnmowers and appliances etc.

The only way people would know if I collect tv's radios or telephones is if they happen to go in my basement. When the cable guys were here to hook up extra rooms they got freaked out and told me "you have too much ju.. er uh stuff in the way" and told me everything had to be moved out of the way for their safety. I told them that the cable runs only needed were for two rooms and the wire only needed to go down the center of the basement ceiling not along the walls. One of the two guys called their supervisor and evidently he told them to do it as they got to work. when I went upstairs to talk to my wife I heard one of them commenting that "this is how my house wont be" and "what is he going to do, watch them all at once?" This is how most people think around here sadly. When they were done the one guy told me I would need an amplifier if I wanted to hook all of them up to cable! He really thought I was some sort of kook that was going to do that....

Doug, I've got a '61 Lawn Boy, too! I forget the model off hand but I think it might be the same. I've cut the yard with it a couple times-right now the spring in the pull cord assy. is broken. I've got a Pennsylvania Exeter reel mower with a B&S on it and I used it several times this spring, does a nice job. Later I got lazy and went back to my "late model" push mower. Its quite the sight, me out there with one of these mowers, my wide brimmed Australian hat, dimestore sunglasses, dust mask-wife just shakes her head...

My friends think I'm nuts. In college, the entire floor thought I was a weirdo, having all these old TVs and things moving in and out all the time.

I revived a Motorola VT-71 over a semester and that was cool. The art students thought old TVs were neat at least.

When I lived in my apartment, various visitors were forever amazed to see my sets. When I got my Setchell Carlson portal done, I used to leave it in the window facing outward to "burn in" the set.

I watched the 9/11 coverage on that set. It didn't let me down and still hasn't.

My mom thinks the old TVs are cool, my dad's like "blah", my brother doesn't notice, and my aunt ignores me...

Huh? :scratch2:

Let the set run for a few hours just showing whatever channel, to let any little 'issues' pop up before I put it all together and use it.

Ok, guess the term "burn in" confused me since that usually means creating an undesirable static image burnt-into the phospher.

While I am trying to build my collection with more 60's TVs and such, a majority of my sets are from the early to mid 70's. Back when I got my first old TVs (all early 70's sets), my dad let me have them, but he wanted me to throw them out after I was "done" with them. I was told they were junk, and keeping them would make me a junk collector. Even with an RCA Victor table top radio I have from the 50's was junk then to my parents. Their attitude has did a 180 now. My dad now even tells people at his work that I have these many TVs, and they are all hooked together and it looks like a giant store display... I have 15 TVs in an 11x13 room, all hooked together with two 8 output video distribution amps. People's first reactions are "woah! lots of TVs!", followed by "do they work?" then by "which one is the oldest?" The oldest right now being my 1962/63 Magnavox 17" B&W. Then I give a demonstration. When I have friends come over, we sometimes hook up the Playstation 2 or Gamecube to these old TVs and turn them all on at once. They all think it's cool. They actually get sharper and brighter pictures than most of today's junk, even with video games.

When people saw my CTC-5, they were amazed that I was able to move it into my room, let alone see a decent color picture on it. I told them that as long as I had that set, I'd never be cold in the winter. Most people really liked the pencil box on it's front, thought it was neet.

Today's nut is tomorrow's far sighted collector. This reminds me of a time years ago in the NY subway system. There was an employee who didn't want to allow the few remaining very old subway cars to get scrapped so he literally hid them! Every once in a while some higher up would come sniffing around looking for them and it became a convoluted game of musical chairs moving them around the system to keep them from being discovered. Several more years go by and there's a push on to start a museum for the subway. Someone laments that there aren't any of those older specimens remaining. Well this feller sheepishly admits that there are in fact some old cars still around. So instead of getting into trouble he became a hero! And that's the rest, of the story.

Anthony

My mom and dad basically think my collection is useless clutter. Whenever they need to do something somehow something of mine was in the way. They always joked around about "we should get a dumpster and clear this crap out so I can have my basement back". I would always get offended and angered by that. Then they'd say "hey Im just joking". They were only "joking" once I got upset. This was supposed to make me feel better, even though I know they really DID want to throw it all away.
The best is when Id come home from estate sales with another TV. "Why do you keep bringing these home? We have enough already!" Regretfully, dad would help me bring a console into the basement.
Its funny, as much as my parents hate my hobby, they act like its so cool when one of their friends sees it and actually somewhat likes it! Then they say "yeah, you probably havn't seen one of those tvs in 30 years but Doug has one. He has quite a museum down there doesnt he"
Once the visitor is gone, then its back to "useless crap in my house" way of thinking.
I always told them you could have alot worse of a kid, one who always got into trouble, into drugs, failing in school. Instead you've got a kid who likes tvs and tools and keeps to himself out of trouble.
Then they would say I need to get away from the house and find more friends so I meet new people. All that In hopes that I would drop this horrible hobby and eventually throw all my tvs away, or perhaps sell them on ebay (maybe for the opening bid of $1 if Im lucky)
The friends that I did have never really cared for my hobby, but they tollerated it, so it was no big deal. Guys from work think Im crazy. My favorite general responce "why do you have all these old tvs? They arnt even cable ready, the picture probably sucks too, wtf Doug?".......All of this reaction because someone chooses to have a hobby that isnt very popular.
Too bad I dont have a "normal" collection, like stamps or coins, some kind of hobby that consumes hardly any space.
Only thing I can hope is that my tvs go up in value someday so I can shove it back into everyones face that has put me down over the years. Proving to them that this once useless hobby is now justified because its worth something now! Just so you know, monetary value of tvs means nothing to me. Unfortuatly, everyone else thinks money is the key factor to a good hobby. Think about it, most popular hobbys are based on monetary value ( for example: cars, sports cards, coins, stamps etc. The list is endless)

Since my tv collection has hardly any value, then its considered a total waist of time and effort by most people. Thats the kind of attitude I hate. Only time will tell with us tv collectors. one day, people might actually appriciate our tv collections because they will be worth something. Its really sad. Considering by the time that even happens (if it does), the TVs that we have are all that will be left!

Untill then, or tvs are only good for watching fish swim in.

Hey Doug-Keep yr chin up, Bro ! I guess there's still a part of me that's a 8-yr old kid who never got over the wonder of how a TV works-it's STILL about half Magick, even if I do know all that dull stuff on how they work. Pictures in a box ! Wow !! How kewl is that ?!? And as far as folks thinking you're weird, I've been accused of that MANY times. I just take it as a compliment & go on. Most of the time I agree w/'em. Look at it this way-Anybody can like stamps, coins, what have you. It takes a special, discerning type of person to appreciate old TVs. But there must be a lot more of us out there than want to admit it, there's ALWAYS a bunch of old sets & crap for sale You-Know-Where. -Sandy G.

Doug, don't feel bad that you don't have a "normal" hobby! I collect closed captioning typos. Definitely not normal. But I'm proud to say I do it because a) nobody else does, and b) I love doing it. You may get bummed that none of your local friends share your interest in old TVs, but you know what? That's their problem.

You've got a real good point about monetary value: what's money compared to the personal value of reviving a relic of the past and bringing it into the present? I'd take pride over money, even if some of those old sets are worth a buck or two.

Hold your flag high, Doug. Your "friends" may not appreciate what you've got, but we do.

Doug,
These are the same people who will spend 50 grand on an SUV and laugh at ME for spending 17 dollars at GW for another TT.In 20 years that SUV will be in the auto trader for the 5th time,and my Dual,or Thorens,or AR will have doubled or tripled in value,or more importantly,be appreciated by another "nut" who sees it in your house.
True story:My wife and I have a lot of vintage collectibles in our house-milk glass,china,old fire king,Mixmasters,old furniture,etc.We had one of my co-workers over once,and he said it looked "nice".Turns out he tells everyone at work that our house "is a Thrift Store".Now guess how many of those co-workers have asked about buying some of our "junk"?One guy gets divorced and cleaned out.He ends up with a beehive Oster,an HK receiver,and old 50's turquoise couch,and the list goes on.One guy tells me the Model 9 Mixmaster I gave him works better than any mixer hes ever owned.Sometimes you just have to bring people around one at a time....
Jimmy

Doug, I hear what you're saying! Let me give my perspective...I was only able to really start collecting TV's, etc. in a big way when I could drive myself out to get them at age 16 (although I had been working on them when I was younger, I could only get what Dad would consent to help load in the van).
When other high schoolers were getting ready for the prom I was driving around collecting TV's from the trash! I didn't even fit in with the "nerd" crowd in high school, I was just too far out for even them.

My parents were pretty liberal...although sometimes Dad would dissuade me from bringing home more sets, they were not upset about it at all. I didn't really care if the other kids were interested in what I did...I just did my own thing. The parents would not let me buy school buses, old cars or trucks (something else I collect) though, I would go to the auction and see them for $200, but they would not let me get them. Now that I'm in my own house, look out! I have 5 school buses, also 3 Grand Marquis, etc.

There is still a LOT of equipment at my Parents' house in Ohio, hundreds of radios, probably about 80 TV's, cart players, ampex tape machines, etc. I am making a dent in bringing it to my home in Texas but it will be incremental, as I can only do it when I can make a trip up there. They don't complain at all about it...it is all stored neatly in the garage, some in the attic. Some of it has been there for 11 years, since I was 16, but I will get it all hauled to my own house someday.

Doug, there ARE people who are really interested in old TV's, etc. There may not be a lot...but it is a lot better to have a few friends who you really have a connection with, than many who are just acquaintances.

Familiar stories to me. I started out with nothing but an 8 x 10 bedroom, at one point I had about 5 or 6 tv sets in there and probably 20 or more radios, along with the bed, dresser, desk, etc. The first old tv I bought, a 21" b/w console, was when I was about 14. I wouldn't have got it except the antique store I bought it from was willing to deliver it one day right after I got off the bus (but before my Dad got home). It was a couple weeks before my parents found out about it!

My parents were very tolerant, glad I wasn't into something far worse.

Chad,

I was the same in high school. I was beyond the "nerd" group. When nerds start to tease you then you know you are in a class all of your own! That was half the fun though, being different and not being ashamed of it. Once I turned 16, tvs and lawnmowers started comming home at a rapid rate! I still have many of those mowers I bought at estate sales then (only lawnboy machines. I consider those "zenith" of lawnmowers)
Dont get me wrong, I am certianly not ashamed of what my hobby is. Its just dissapointing when all you do is take smart a$$ shots from everyone including your own family for being the way you are. It gets old....very fast. Thats whats so great about AK, we all appriciate old TVs and everyone gets along like we're best friends. Thanks for the comments guys.

Hey, how do people react when you find a tv at an estate sale? First off, the people running the sale 9 times out of 10 will say "I didnt think anyone would have bought that" or "luckily we didnt throw that away before the sale". More times they will ask "what are you looking for"... You say Old tvs, responce: "Oh, we threw them out before the sale to make more room"
Thats the worst when you hear that, and unfortunatly, thats what I hear most of the time! It may seem that I find all kinds of tvs and radio stuff, but believe me, its a very rare occurance when you factor in how many estate sales I go to each weekend. Id say I find an old tv in 1 out of 50 estate sales. basically, I might find a tv every 4 months, thats about it.

Heh, I've only been out of High School for 4 years now, but I was in the same situation as Doug and Chad. I was in the A/V department, and used to go there during my study hall time. Had lots of old, tubed equipment there. TVs, record players, reel to reels, pa units, etc. That's where I scored my 1975 Sears hybrid set (it belonged to a librarian who quit 20 years before) which was my first tube TV, even though it was a hybrid. Then there was this RCA Lyceum 23" B&W TV from I think 1970, all tube, 75 ohm coax input, video line level inputs, audio line level inputs with a phono input, and lighted dials on the tuner (I love lighted dials!) I ended with that TV anyhow. Lots of stupid kids there got on me for liking the old TVs. And earlier this year, at work in the storage area, there was like an endless supply of older computer monitors and servers. I was with a coworker of mine up there looking at this old server and he was going to see if they were going to get rid of it soon. While I was up there, I noticed that there was this early 70s Admiral color hybrid tube set stuffed back in a corner. I asked the guy in charge of the IT department about that, then told him what I like to do, and got laughed at in my face, twice by that guy! Then followed the insults. What a jerk. People are very closed minded on stuff like this for some reason. I had my share of stupid remarks about my hobby.

I know I've been rather quiet here, but I really enjoy reading others posts here. This is one of the first places I visit when I get online. Too bad I didn't find out about this place until the middle of this year or so. This is a great forum. Great people and TVs.

Well, today was the hobby fair in our small town. I took plenty of radios but only one tv, and was debating which one to take. Finally settled on the Transvision, a '49 12" model. (kit tv) Its in a console cabinet so I just pulled the chassis (easy to do since it was never bolted down, just pull the knobs and out she goes) Hooked it up to a vcr playing "The Life of Riley". It was a real hit, almost everyone commented on it. Struck up a number of good conversations thanks to having that on display: guys who's father or uncle had built a tv from a kit; people reminiscing about their first set; many were amazed that such an old set could be hooked to a vcr; one of the local tv repairman stopped by & was telling me how he wished (for my sake) that he had saved all the stuff he'd thrown out over the years. He told about one old building here in town that was remodeled, I think in the late 80s, and the attic had been full of tv's and radios, and apparently they were all trashed because nobody was interested. I noticed that none of the kids were particulary interested, save for one young guy with quite a hobby: building all sorts of "toy" firearms, like "shock guns" powered by model train transformers and 9 volt batteries and capacitors out of disposable cameras and other evil stuff like that. He was really eyeing the can caps in the Transvision!

Re: Estate sales...in this area, the name of the vendor conducting the sale usually appears in the ad, and I only patronize certain companies. These companies know me and know I like old TV's, sometimes they even have old tv's or computers for free at their sales! Some vendors I have boycotted because they had astronomical prices on stuff or just didn't seem very personable.

Some of my scores have been from antique dealers. They were all within my price range. There is one in Columbus, OH that I do not recommend. This one had a 17 inch RCA for 100 (twice what I will pay for an unrestored BW). The woman behind the counter (owner?) is very rude. I am just amazed at how clueless some of these vendors are. I have passed on some restorable sets because of vendor price gouging and general cluelessness.

I have not checked estate sales, since I won't pay the five dollars to look at the Disaptch online. Several of my co-workers are looking as they travel (as do I). Most of my scores have been curbside finds or those I bought at the ETF swapmeets.

The most recent curbside find I had was my Admiral color set. That was a case of good timing. I doubt I'll have that kind of luck again.

I'm bringing back old threads again...

The whole H.A.A (Half-Ass-Amish) terminology at the beginning of this thread described me so well I thought I would bring this one back. I made a decision to go that way in late 1999. I didn't have any problems like you guys did in high school because I spent all my time hanging out with my grandfather, who liked all this old stuff that we do. But when I went to college I really experienced a sense of distaste at the general culture there. After 3 years I just couldn't take it anymore. So I put all my modern electronic devices out on the curb, moved in with my girlfriend, changed my major to ancient languages, started collecting old TVs, and never looked back.

As far as reactions to old TVs, I'm always surprised when people see 20 old sets in my front room and don't say anything at all.

My experience has been as follows. If a visitor to my home sees a 30 year old set as my daily watcher, They'd probably figure I was poor, and couldnt afford a new set. That is until they see my audio collection, and my modern sets. But its amazing how little kids (even teens) are downright RUDE about anything vintage-- Ah, but they do not get it anyway.

This is one of the most fun things about the TV hobby!

I love it when we have to get the DirecTV people here, and usually the guy is about 18 and has never seen a TV older than the late 80s. They walk around, pretending not to notice whatver vintage TV I happen to have in place at the time, and they act funny. Then they go behind the set looking for the 75-ohm terminal, and they can't figure out what to do with 2 screw terminals. Ofcourse they don't have, and don't know what a matching transformer is :D ...

Another scenario I love to put on is that my fiance Kay owns, and we live in, this $3,000,000 house overlooking the Reagan Library. (not bragging, as I don't own a penny of it)... It has all the stuff that they show on MTV Cribs, so anyone coming in expects a 72" flat screen hidden behind a mirror or something. If the visitor is an over-50 person, I do a little skit when they get shown the house: We take them all through, showing the kitchen with SubZero fridge, the center island Viking stove with motorized rise-up vent panel, and all the stuff. Then I say "the house is nice & cozy allright, but we have something REALLY special... Come this way (to the livingroom)... We have a COLOR TV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" In the corner sits the Zenith roundie with a 1960s vintage electric clock on it. The over-50 visitor suddenly thinks he/she is back in the early 60s, when that color TV would have drawn a crowd.

Charles

Several years ago I had the cable guy out for problems on my cable service. This was when I had my prewar sets in the same room as my 1982 RCA Color Trek 2000 that I used as my primary set. He was really rude, stating that I was stealing cable even though none of the sets were hooked up to cable. He proceeded to give the sets a dirty look, and gave me a dirty look when I told him that my color set had given me years of good service. It was clear that he thought the vintage sets were junk and I was mad for having them. I almost changed to the dish, but since the dog attacked my TRK-12 I have moved the sets into a dog proof room (damage was repaired) and no longer am concerned about being labeled a cable thief by some rude cable guy. I am happy feeding my sets signal from a VCR/DVD player.

Eric

I've generally gotten good reactions to my TV and radio collections. We have them scattered throughout the house, from the living room to the basement, even to the bathroom (I have a 1968 Zenith B/W portable on my bathroom counter).

Most people who come to visit are amazed that a TV "that old" works and works well. My father-in-law watches various sports events on the '65 Admiral in the living room when he comes over, and always comments on the vividness of the colors. I always get questions like "can you still get tubes" and "where did you learn how to fix those"

I've gotten a few comments along the lines of "why would you want to watch that old thing" but nobody's ever really given me any major grief over it.

Jim

If I actually had a cable-TV employee come into my home (which I have not since 1990 anyway, and I dropped cable in 1995), and they made a comment like that, I would forcibly remove them from my property instantly. I would then have the person wait at the edge of my property until I handed them any cable boxes that were in the house.

A friend of mine has had satellite TV since the 1980's (C-band first and digital later), and he actually made the cable company remove their unused line from his house! They didn't like that at all...

Man, have times changed! That sure was cool around 1976, when I got to drive dates around in my Dad's Fleetwood Brougham. Pop an 8-track in with music to get them in the right mood...nothing like electrically-controlled wide passenger-side front seats that go W-A-Y back to almost horizontal, when you are at the drive-in. :yes: :D

I guess "cool" just isn't the same as "kewl", these days.

Feeling older every year here...:no:

Unfortunately I don't have a tube TV set yet but I do have a vast collection of vintage tube audio equipment, all restored and in excellent condition w tubes exposed. Most people do notice and are then blown away by the sound quality. My girlfriend (born in 1976) was never exposed to this stuff and thinks its real cool, she now has a vintage 70's stereo set up. I do need a tube TV to fullfill my retro bachelor pad. I also drive around in a 1970 442.

Tee hee hee! All of you youngsters (I'll be 56 next month) many times act as if you have just "discovered" old color TV's!! I was repairing them while in high school in the late 60's and I mean fixing them for real and when I was 17 got a job at a stereo & TV store as a TV tech. I have collected color TV's for over 40 years now and have about 30 of the roundies. (three mint CT-100's) I have countless other sets as well. (about 100 total) I also have all of my tubes and then some from a 40 year collection. (about 10,000!) I still have lots of NOS Zenith and RCA parts to keep my sets going. Now they're back in vogue and glad I saved them! Just wait until someone discovers I have NOS color CRT's!!

One story I like to relate is when I was at a Atlanta hamfest some years ago, a gentleman pulled in a trailer full of junk-and I mean JUNK. (nothing stuff from a wet basement) One thing he did have was a Korean era field telephone set (bad condition-I ended up buying it for $1) and two young boys about 15 looking were at it and one said "oh, that's a military radio. Those are valuable"! I happened to say no, that's an old Army field phone. One boy asked "what's that?" I said that you would have two or more connected with a pair of wires.

They looked at each other in amazement and one said "WIRES? ARE YOU SURE??" Our young generation just don't even have a clue of what wire is used for anymore.

When I give talks, I like to relate this story. Last year at the television museum in Columbus I related this story again and the audience roared. Some guy later on was giving a talk on his Russian RCA mirror in the lid set and when trying to get it to work mentioned he needed to hook up a antenna wire to the set. Someone in the audience yelled out, "WIRES? Are you sure?" That was funny! Julian

My cable-guy experience was different. In my living room I have a 1956 Motorola console, a 60s Olympic TV/phono combo, and a flat-screen HD set. When the guy came to hook up my cable he walked straight over to the Motorola and opened up his toolbox--"Oh, you don't want this one hooked up--ha ha ha..." He thought it was cool.

Last year, for the Motorola's 50th anniversary, I had a bunch of friends over for a party. We made appropriate 1956 food (when was the last time you had a Baked Alaska?) and I put together a DVD of a bunch of 50s/60s clips. The funniest part was people's reaction when a clip w/the NBC peacock came on. "Awwwwwww! When are we going to get a color tv?"