A 1957 General Electric 9T002
 

I visited a friend who had this set stowed away in a back room and I had to have it. It's a 1957 General Electric 9T002 9" portable TV that I call the 1957 Bel Air of TV's! Between the mid-century design and aqua/ivory two-toning it screams the 1950's. it's also very small and light. A real gem. These are also found with Hotpoint badging. The picture on these are rather dark, but okay. This one had been fully recapped and I just thoroughly cleaned and polished. No further detailing.

:thmbsp:
You need some boomerang pattern drapes to go with that.

Verrry '57ish. Gotta diggit. :yes:
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q...ir&FORM=IDINTS

The set uses some odd-ball tubes. A low B+ set, no voltage doubler. :scratch2:

You aren't kidding about the odd-ball tubes. The HV for the CRT goes through pin 6 on the CRT socket. I had one that worked quite well until one of the CRT leads broke even with the glass. I never could get a satisfactory repair.

Louis Mattar had a 1947 Cadillac on display at the San Diego Auto Museum. He had one of these TVs (beige and brown) mounted on the headliner for back seat passengers. Of course, he had to have the yoke rotated 180 degrees so the picture was orientated properly.

Here is a link to the SD Auto Museum:

https://sdautomuseum.org/exhibit/lou...s-fabulous-car

Unfortunately, it looks like the car may no longer be on exhibit. It certainly was a sight to behold.

Thanks guys. The set pure '50's eye candy. I couldn't even put it up on a shelf. I have it out on a table to admire.
Yes, my friend did a total recap on it and told me how "Ruth Goldberg" these cheapie sets were. He also mentions that, ironically, they were used to death for many years, so that really isn't an insult to them! Unfortunately it's not uncommon to find the CRT's dead in these. This CRT has issues, but is acceptable. I don't consider it one of my so called "players", but it's just a fun set to turn on a watch a Honeymooners episode on.

Sweet find!

anyone got a schematic? GE was better than Muntz at half assing TV sets....

:thmbsp: "Rube" :D

LOL!
Thanks guys. Whether a cheapie '50's Muntz, Olympic, etc, there really was no bad TV. In fact, when fully restored, these sets often play surprisingly well.

Here's a schematic https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DY7...ew?usp=sharing Should be the set

:) Not only do I love the look of it , with that awesome classic 50s styling , I love that you've got Phil Silvers showing on it , Great presentation Joe !

I would have loved to see one with a UHF tuner. I have no idea where they would have put it!

The UHF models have a disk placed on the tuner shaft under the cabinet that's viewed through a long slot forward of the tuner. Models that didn't have it had a snap-on cover over this slot.

….and thanks init4fun. I always thought presentation is very important with these old sets. A classic TV playing a classic show and a radio playing a period song or show makes it really come alive.
By the way, The Phil Silvers Show's were predictable and far-fetched, but Phil, Joe E. Ross, and Paul Ford were fantastic. My favorite episodes are Phil pulling one over on Joe.

Not only did they cram a UHF tuner in there, it was powered by its own separate filament transformer.

Not only that, the transformer was configured as an autotransformer. Kind of unusual for a filament transformer. However, that did eliminate one wire coming off of the transformer as well as some copper in the winding. I have a hunch that was a very small transformer.

Nice set.

My collection started with it's big brother the 14T series GE portables : http://videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=265871 The red set in that thread has the flyback from my green one (I never undid the swap). I sold (or did I give away?) the red one to dieseljeep who upon catching wind that another collector wanted me to restore another 14T series set (and that I didn't have time to do that) yanked the chassis out of the red one so I could pass it on to the fellow who wanted his set restored. That fellow hosts the Madison radio swapmeets and wanted a restoration bad enough to offer a 9" GE same as decojoes except for color....The 14" set he eventually had me do a chassis swap on was his family's set when he was a kid. Some day I may have to try and buy the 9" er off of him...
The chassis swap gave me a trade for some cheater cords and a Sam's I needed for my Motorola 21CT2B.

Most painted metal 50s portables look sort of like 50s cars (which is part of the reason I love 50s portables). I always considered the predicta to be the 57 Chevy of TV collecting. They both came out around the same time and we're modern designs for their time that were not the most popular at launch (Ford out sold Chevy in 1957) but after sales ended both achieved a huge cult following and have large collector communities...to the point that the first vintage car and TV a layman and many hobbiests picture if asked to picture one would be a 57 Chevy and a Predicta.

GE took a completely different path from RCA on these small sets.
The RCA is heavy (20lbs without the stand), complicated and lasts forever, the set Dad would get for his Office.
The GE was light (13lbs) & cute & colorful, just right for the Kids at Christmas.

With a good CRT they can make a really good picture, finding one with a really good CRT is a challenge. The 9QP4 was apparently as big a disaster as the 21EAP4 used in the Philco Predicta.

GE was good at making cheap sets perform well. One of the best working 1950's sets I have is a 17" Hotpoint 17S301.

I always thought the Predicta and Edsel were the go-together icons. Sorry... back to corner.:o

I agree with everything. The friend I bought the GE from has been repairing old TV's for decades and particularly loves the metal mid-'50's sets. I've heard a lot about almost all of them, and he has never seen a truly poor performer. These GE "personal portables" would be absolute tops if they only didn't have the CRT issues. I'm glad this one works at all.