Why do we collect?
 

Ever have someone over and show them a vintage color set and then see the deer in the headlights look? I'm convinced that other than groups like this people neither know or care about the stuff we do. So will say oh yea I remember those and that's the end of the conversation.

I guess as long as we appreciate what it took to create this technology that's really all that matters.

To me, it represents a time when the US held the technologic advantage, and a "golden era" of US manufacturing. It also takes me back to my childhood, when tubes were the building blocks, sets were furniture, and repair was simplified.

That, and as Sandy points out, we ain't right in the head....:D

Cheers,

I am a youngin'. Only 42. So I have no memories of these old sets. However, my collecting started when I was looking through old family photos with my parents. Both my Mom and Dad identified their first TVs and radios in the photographs. Dad had a Crosley 307-TA (RCA 630 clone) and Mom had a DuMont RA-108 Mansfield. So the hunt was on. I now have 3 family set models. Crosley, DuMont 108 and DuMont 103 Doghouse (Crosley and Doghouse working). I then started branching out and the collecting was on. Not really sure why I personally love it. Just do. Love the old technology. Makes me feel closer to my parents and grandparents (who are long gone). Love listening to an old radio or watching an old set and knowing that the experience I am having is the same they were having 65-80 years ago. Just something neat about that.

I have my Great Grandfather's Edison Standard Phonograph, that was in my father's attic for decades. I got a hold of it several years ago and restored it. When I hear that play, makes me think about them, listening to it in the early 1900s, before radio and TV and it makes me smile. :D

Yea me too. I started off with a set in the attic of an antique shop (The Mighty Monarch Of The Air) and never looked back. I didn't have a television in the house growing up and maybe that has something to do with it :scratch2:? In any case I, as I suspect many of you, am now known as "the guy who is really into old TVs" to friends, family, co-workers, and acquaintances. Another huge part of the appeal for me is the community of people that I have meet because of it. We all share a common passion and many will go out of their way to help.

Even at 33, I have memories of sets similar to those I collect, one identical. I started with an older Sony I found for free, thinking that it might make a neat retro replacement for my aught '5 Sanyo.

I collect older TVs with the intention of never buying a new one. I buy almost nothing new these days. Quality and design left along with the industrial age. I just got a 60" by 30" desk that's about 50 years old, mostly metal and extremely heavy. I had a smaller metal desk at one time, but I wasn't prepared for such a significant weight increase.

Ah yes, the Mighty Monarch. She's still being enjoyed in the living room. I can lay right across the couch and watch a real TV, not that "picture picture" thing from Mr. Rogers ;)

Often...when I am dragging a heavy tv, stereo console radio or such up some rickety basement stairs and nearly DYING while doing so...I will ask myself "what is wrong with me--why am I doing this?". But once it is loaded and mine--I then feel a LOT better about my 'capture".

My closest friend --who is supportive of my hobby.. and was happy about me going to the convention--does NOT understand why I 'want to keep so much stuff". I now you have done this since you were a kid.."keep a few things and get rid of the rest"--she says. NOT very likely I lost ENOUGH stuff a couple of years ago during the robbery !!

I cannot bear to see anything from the old days that works get trashed in favor of something plastic and VERY temporary. If it looks like its going to get trashed, I cannot resist.

I started messing with anything electrical out of boredom at 4 when my family lived in Texas in the mid-late 60s. The hot-dusty-electronic smell from our metal 19" motorola was hypnotic. When the picture collapsed into a very bright line, I could not turn it off because I needed my 3 Stooges fix, yet I marvelled at why it did that.

Dad and I took it somewhere an ENTIRE garage-shop smelled like that and included pipe smoke.

The repairman was just putting the cover back on when we came to get it back and as I got real close, I got dire warnings about high voltages that will "jump out and git cha".
Seeing lit tubes and hearing the sound was akin to an orchestra of parts, arranged as a cityscape. I knew I wanted to fix them.

As I grew bored with toys, house wiring and other stuff with plugs - without getting electrocuted, I was finally permitted to have a TV - a 12"bw Bradford.
The rest is personal history but with a long break in collecting ('88-'10) once I became a homeowner and had to learn a new skillset.

As a group, we are fearless tinkerers and also susceptible to the same insanity with appliances and stuff having engines and wheels.

Collecting these sets takes me back to a kinder, gentler time. When school was out for the summer, me and all the guys in the hood would play softball on the makeshift diamond we made in a vacant field. Or we would hop the local freight trains for fun. When we were done playing, would go to the local mon and pop grocery store and reward ourselves with a Nesbitt orange soda and sit under a shade tree on a hot Summer Milwaukee day, to savor that soda and debate who was better, Hank Aaron or Willie Mays. :-) miss those days.

Thanks for the amazing photo! It makes me miss the set.

John's sets are traveling. I was able to score your Motorola in the ETF silent auction. Only set I bid on and won it. Nice repro mask too.

Great to hear everyone's stories about collecting. :thmbsp:

WE are the guardians/protectors of an ancient/obsolete technology-CRT based TVs. Forsaken now, unwelcome by most, its up to US to show the uncaring, & little-knowing, just what they're missing.

O wao! Do I remember that one. Glad to see she's still chuggin' along. :yippy:

A few days ago I put the gutted cabinet of a console TV that was much too recent for my liking, not to mention dirt-common and lacking in quality, at the curb across the street. I looked outside about two hours later and it was gone. I hope I somehow saved a desirable set by doing that.

It was starting in older TVs that got me started in developing my eye for quality.

Well, if you ever decide you want to bring her home again, she's yours for the asking. You never forget your first.... :tresbon:

Yes, we're self made care takers in a world that cares little about where we came from technologically speaking. I've had great fun in my 40 + years of collecting and restoring old technology. For me, it's difficult to find something in today's culture that is satisfying. Finishing the restoration of an old TV, radio, jukebox or even an open reel VTR gives me a sense of accomplishment that few today ever experience. Beyond that I take pleasure in sharing my collection with friends and family who in many cases have never seen things like a click tuner on a TV or heard a 100 + year old wax cylinder play. I think we as collectors are a special breed that looks for satisfaction in ways many people never imagine. Ladies and Gentlemen, thanks for being who you are.

From my collection of old radios, computers and furniture: from my cold, dead hands!:thmbsp:

Why do I collect early TV sets (and things that go with them)?

Because when I was a kid, things such as our TV set often broke and we could not get them fixed. I want to "avenge" for that.
Because I could see the Chicago Standard Transformer plant while riding an El train in Chicago as a teenager, and I appreciate the golden era of American manufacturing with American parts (as Findm Keepm mentioned).
Because my one older brother got an electric project set when we were kids that I liked, and my other older brother bought an antique radio years later that I liked, too.
Because I like technological challenges.
Because, as my brother said when I was about eight years old, "I have 'old' in my system!".
Because I like that it is an unusual hobby compared to, say, stamp collecting (see my signature below).
Because bringing something back to life is highly satisfying, something we CAN control and improve in a life full of things that get worse and cannot be controlled.
Because the science of electronics is just plain COOL!

It's the Tubes! The TUBE'S!!!! Woooooooooo(ghostly sounding) lol
I don't know, just always liked vintage electronics. Tubes were very interesting to my 7/8 year old self when my dad picked up that 1948 Philco console AM/FM
radio(1264). Also always just had an interest in fans. I'm told to this day, that when I was a baby, I could be put underneath a ceiling fan and just watch it for hours in amazement. Must have been kind of funny too...

A high definition tv will show high definition if it is fed such , if not and it is low like antenna tv and others then the image has a kind of - i put wax paper over the screen look , well on the old sets such an image does not have the wax paper look and actually is pleasing to the eyes.
i guess the people staring just like the headlights in the deers eyes is like i am when i hear this i phone is coming out or the galaxy 9 is to go on sale or jlo has a new song or beyonce has a new song - thats when i am the deer with the headlights in the eyes.
These sets go back to the days when there was so much to watch and they more then likely displayed those programs or could have.

When I was in high school, one of my teachers gave me an old Emerson console TV, which I restored and got working again. I still have that set 42 years later. In college, I had a TV repair and sales business that I ran out of my apartment. Lots of good memories associated with old TV sets and radios. I also appreciate the quality and craftsmanship of those old sets. Nothing like that is available today, and the current attitude is "throw it away" to get the latest and greatest (IMHO, Apple Computer is the worst offender of promoting this). So I hoard old TV sets.

It was personal
 

For me growing up as a kid in the 50's my dad took me to a tv store one day and there was a program on tv in color! It was the most amazing thing I had seen. I was determined to find a way to own one, but it took me until the early 60's to actually buy a used ctc 7. We were the first ones in our family to own one and all the relatives would come over to watch it.

So collecting keeps the memories fresh.

I saw my first color TV in 1954 and asked Santa for one. Needless to
say, I didn't get it ... until last summer, almost 60 years later. A CT-100.

For me throughout my life, it was the "forbidden fruit".

Whenever my dad would be pulling tubes to be tested on the living room set (I think it was a CTC-15), I wasn't allowed anywhere NEAR him. I remember sitting at the top of the steps peering inside and trying to see the magic within.

Then, when I was 7, I discovered tube radios. I still have my very first radio bought in October 1978 for $1 at an auction (A Motorola 65X12 I think), and then we went back in November and I bought another (Bendix 636D). I still have them both. Then it was on to TVs, I had a 24" Motorola B/W hi-fi console set in my bedroom that my parents hated....but I bought it for $5 at that auction months after. Used it for years.

Ever since I was a boy, I have wished, wanted, and hoped that someone would teach me how to repair radios and TVs. Every old tech I ran across told me that I shouldn't fool with things like that, and cast an aura of some kind of magic dangerous voodoo over the whole thing. Loved the stuff all my life, but never learned how to fix anything.

It wasn't until my mid 20s that I got bold enough, and sick and tired enough of waiting for someone to show me the ropes that I said, "screw it, nobody wants to teach me, I'll figure it out myself". Managed to come this far....not perfect, but I'm pleased with my progress and I learn new things all the time.

One day, maybe I'll find a little boy just like I was, with that starry eyed look of tubes glowing, and I'll take him under my wing and give him the teacher I never had :)

My kids are too busy playing PS4 lately :eek:

I started when I was about 12 or 13. I'm 31 now. My dad and I had gone to some garage sales. There were 3 radios there. Two plastic and one wood one. The wood one was in bad shape so I parted that out. I've still got the two plastic Radios. Motorola clock radio and a G.E. clock radio. Couple of years later, I moved on to TV sets. I like the styling of them. My radios vary in age from the 1920's to the 1960's. The TV sets range from the 1940's to the 1980's.
If it wasn't for my husband, I wouldn't have any new TVs.

I'd kill to have one of your washer/dryer setups. I have no idea how you found those.

My dad (rest his soul) was a teletype repairman in the USAF. When I was a pup I'd watch him work on electrical projects. Electricity is in my blood and I passed on my love of electronics to my son. Yeah, I worked on electronics in the AF just like Dad. It's the one thing I can take with me!

I was lucky.. my Uncle had a TV/Sales repair store, and as a kid, I LOVED the back-room. All the sets lined up on the repair bench... the house calls.. and getting to unbox the NEW Zenith's. I can still smell those CC' 2s fresh out of the box......

I too was very lucky to go on house calls as a boy as the helper to a great man. It was great to visit the different people. I often try to find any of them that may still be alive. Seems crazy to many but i think everybody i ever met is special to me.
i love these tv's and all related things because they help keep the memories of loved ones fresh, both gone and those who are still here. I love all this great technology and history for all the reasons mentioned by others. To see all those tubes light up on my ctc 15 was always a great thrill for me and mostly to see the exact beuatiful living color programs exactly as my loved ones and the rest of the world saw is one of my greatest pleasures.
now, if i can just get my mom to watch it with me... :yes:... she is still afraid to enjoy the past completely.

I guess for me it was because I'd find something I wanted in the trash, and could often get it working.

Now most of what I own are items that were cast off by their previous owners. Either found curbside or bought cheaply second hand. Some have minor things wrong them still, flaws as it were, but I made them functional again.

I made them live again, often by taking parts from other dead electronics to accomplish this. A bit like Frankenstein's monster in a way.

To me, that's a refreshing way of thinking actually.

That's the other thing that I miss being in a tv showroom when the wood cabinets were new and had that new car smell. Now the only time a set gives off an odor is when a components burns up.