Anybody want to own a genuine TV repair shop?
 

I know of one for sale here in S.E. Fla. You buy it and I'll run it for you!
Hahaha... as if I could be so lucky. I am not foolish enough to think this could happen.
However, there is a company that has been here for 45 years and it is for sale!
If I had an extra $25,000 I would buy it sight unseen but as you might have guessed by now I do not have an extra $25,000 dollars at the moment.
I am going to check it out and let you fellas know about!

I don't read the paper as often as I want but today I found 2 surpises!
The other has not been confirmed but the ad reads: TV,record player & AM/FM radio in solid wood cabinet... as you can imagine I got my fingers crossed!
I'll write back about that too.

He said it was a popular brand...
 

I had my hopes up. He said no to my first 3 guesses and I was trying to think fast and said Packard Bell... he said that sounds close but it's not that. That's when I started to get a disappointing feeling as I had already confirmed it has a rectangular screen. He said it was a popular brand that had a lifetime warranty and sure enough it was my next regretful guess... it's a Curtis Mathis. My thoughts went to that mammoth sized '79 model we all saw on ebay a short time ago. You could not pay me to take that.
He said a lady is supposed to come put it in her car but he thinks it wont fit so he may be calling me. He is a nice man that I hope is mistaking a roundie for a rectangularie. Stranger things have happened so I will check it out if he calls.

I actually own a building in the Detroit area that would be an IDEAL tv-repair shop. I should think that with a UPS/Fed-Ex/etc. account, there would be enough business via the internet overhauling old sets/radios...

Rebuild my sets and I'll give you a below market lease! :thmbsp:

Hi Carmine,
Sounds like a good possibility except that I have to live close to my relatives.
I definately want to visit your area sometime.
Saturday I am going to meet with the man selling the shop and I'll get pics to post. If I were to get into this business I would need financial backing so I may have a little difficulty in getting someone to invest in a TV shop! I have a few people to help me run the business but I expect it would be sometime before such a business would turn a profit but I will check it all out anyway.

I haven't heard from the Curtis Mathis owner so I guess the lady managed to get it. I wrote that you could not pay me to take the humongous '79 we saw on ebay awhile ago but if I had space I would. If it was a roundie I would make space. I really like the home entertainment centers even though I always feel like an idiot who is maybe a little weird whenever I go to lift one. I have a huge RCA that a friend and I almost dropped hard but softened the landing with my friends finger. Eventually the skin heeled and you can hardly tell it happened. I am moving to another apartment in Feb. so I may make some dolleys to roll it. It has casters but I worry about ruining them by pushing it across concrete. I wanted to go into another apartment but I would have had to remove a complex window system to get it in so I had to go to an apartment that cost $220. more a month to keep my great sounding oversized stereo!

been there, doen that, I owned and operated a large factory authorized service center in the south bend area for over 15 years, unfortunately, most shops have went out of business because of the increased reliability and the relatively low cost to replace most sets, although I do miss the good old days when Beta-Maxs cost over 1200 each

If you plan on making a living at repairing tv's these days you might want to have an alternative income source, because in the summer,most shops have very little to do, it is extremely hard to make a living in consumer electronic repair these days

I think that depends on where you live.Around here in lower Delaware and the Eastern Shore of MD is a resort area. In the summer there are thousands of vacationers and tourists and the motel rooms,condos and vacation homes have tvs that break due to sitting all winter, power surges and especially lightning.A lot of people are still trying to hold on to their older tvs until they have to replace them also.But you need to be able to repair tvs from the 90s to early 2000s and especially projection tvs as people are more likely to get them repaired and the new technolgy tvs. The new stuff(Plasma,DLP and LCD) are board level and lamp changes. You still have to understand what is going on and do some troubleshooting before you order boards. Ordering the wrong board and restocking fees can get pretty costly.And in home service of the large tvs is where the money is,not in carry in.We do some warranty work to keep work coming in during the slow times.I take all the projection tvs people don't want fixed and sell them. I don't take anymore portable tvs people want to give to me anymore. The used market for tvs under 36" is pretty much dead. Can't sell them.Unless you're dealing with people like on this forum. But for the general public forget it.Our shop is full of 27" tvs that are almost impossible to sell anymore.And there's an upright 27" console tv some people never picked up after the repair we can't give away. The last console like that sat in the shop for 3 years and we had to sell it dirt cheap.

t v repair is like shoe repair shops.... nobody fixes them, they throw them out and buy new ones.

I would definitely recommend you have enough money from alternate income sources that you don't depend on a repair shop to make that much money. We have plenty of business in the jukebox, antique radio, guitar amp, organ, etc. field but we just about break even...our business operates to support our mission of working on this equipment because we enjoy it. You could not make a living at it alone.

JCfitz hit it right on the head. I can't even give away working 27 or 20 inch sets any more. People look at used console TV's like they'e the cause of the bad smell in the referigerator.

If you're established in this business you might have a chance. A new guy has almost no hope. I think the main reasons I'm still making a living in this business (knock on wood!) are that I don't have any monthly rent, I've been in business almost 22 years, and I'm the only guy still doing this in my town. When It's time for me to retire, I dont have any hopes of selling the business. I'll simply disappear into history along with the rest of the TV repair people.

I just hope that won't be too soon.

Alternate sources of income are a good idea, and I think in-home service on projection sets, and vintage gear repair are a good idea. I serviced gear for the local music stores. Warranty work never paid well.

I got a letter earlier this month from Loud Technologies ( Mackie, Tapco, EAW, Crate, and Ampeg ) stating that they are eliminating their warranty repair centers. They are going to exchange only for warranty work. All non warranty parts orders now have to be prepaid since they are closing all the accounts.

Wonder how long I will even be able to get parts.

Bill R.

back in the mid-80's Mashushita predicted that they would reduce the number on service centers needed nation-wide by 20,000. In retrospect that was probably a pretty fair number.

Besides that if you are an authorized service center, they make you pay for the training and subscibe to service yearly. that gets to be pretty espensive.

Here is the place...
 

It's Sheldon's TV. Owned by a great guy named Bob Rinker and located on Federal Highway(Broadway) in Riviera Beach, Fla. An authorized RCA and Zenith Dealer since early 60's and recently Zenith dropped him claiming he had too few claims. Apparently his business is steady and good with long time customers. Surprisingly to me there was very little there older than the '90's as far as parts or TV's. The shop is small so I can imagine tons of valuable stuff was tossed over the years. He recently tossed a bunch of stuff. I did not press for details even though I wondered about my just missing the boat again. I was a little disappointed by the neighborhood. However, the building is secure and I believe the neighborhood will get better and better(remember "RCA is making television better and better."?). It is located near Singer Island which is a special place and he services that area. There is a new huge condo complex very close. Bob has a bum knee and needs time away or I think he'd stay longer.

Bobby, I'm glad you have taken the interest in his business. Here is something simple that I have done: for every TV shop/repairman I have come across I wrote a short biography including any facts I could find out: what year did they start, who were they a dealer for, a description of their shop, etc. I keep all the biographies in alphabetical order on the computer and add new ones as I find out about them.

If we don't do it, who will?

Bryan, I guess it's up to you and me to honor our brothers
 

Based on the lack of response to this thread and other stuff I have found here I think those who use this site are here just to get info, parts, TV's and whatever else they like but the history behind the sets and anything about the many TV men seem to be uninteresting to them. I am very surprised to not find more written that would indicate much concern for anything outside the products and their values.
I believe I like this electronic stuff for all the same basic reasons most here do but I mainly like having something to present to other people to start conversations. In other words The stuff I take from here is to help me interact with other people for entertainment and to learn how to be a better person. I expect some of you reading this agree that I need help in that area.

We care very deeply about the legacy and history of old repair shops. Most of the inventory of parts and tubes we have at our shop were obtained from shops and Radio Shacks we have visted in the small towns of West Texas and New Mexico. We have photographed and talked with the owners of many of these shops. We got the idea to start our shop after a repair shop which specialized in old radios and phonos closed down after 50 years in business. If you visit our website you will see we are an institution completely devoted to the kind of historical preservation you are speaking of.

That's great!
 

I will visit! It is good to know others also care about the people behind and around the TV's/radios as well.

TV shop
 

I found the pictures of his TV shop very interesting, and I noticed that the TV's he got there for repair are decently stored. Here in Brazil TV repair shops are usually very chaotic places, where the owners put dozens and dozens of TV sets on top of each other, forming true "TV walls" . Do american owners of TV shops do the same, or the way he stores the TV's in his shop is the normal way in the US?

Bob's shop has about as much clutter as possible but he is careful with his customer's sets which are mostly big screen sets. I would keep my showroom very clean and free of clutter. I am sure Bob's was that way in the past as some of the 70's RCA decor(curtains/displays) is still in place. There are many photos throughout this site showing shops in America stacked just like you described which is not how I would do it but everybody is running out of space. I try to be as careful as possible with anything nice treating it like a museum piece.
Do you think there are any round screen color sets in Brazil?

I'm just in this hobby for the money! :D Bling Bling, Yo!

http://movies.nnov.ru/Covers/All-Abo...-Benjamins.jpg

Oh he's a regular wise guy.

I bet he thinks I am greedy and I bet he won't admit it.

color sets
 

[QUOTE=Do you think there are any round screen color sets in Brazil?[/QUOTE]

There are VERY few of them...I only know of of two. One is with a collector who is a friend of mine. The other is with a guy who collects movie memorabilia. From what I have been able to learn, some 300 color TV sets were imported from the USA to the city of São Paulo in 1963, and were sold to rich people, so they could watch some experimental color transmissions that were conducted by two TV stations of that city.

Could you get us a photo?
 

That is real neat that you know such info. I would think that there could be a fair # of those 300 sets still there. I get the impression that a place like Brazil has an extremely large percentage of low income people and those are the types that may keep such old stuff. I imagine the rich, who originally bought them, would have gotten rid of them a year or two after first getting them. So, then they would likely give them to relatives. The relatives would pass them down to the poor relatives or anybody else to get rid of them. I imagine the poor in Brazil being much more likely to keep something like an attractive nonworking TV in their home than the poor Americans. I expect many of them were gutted to use cabinet for other purposes like in many in America. However, crazy as my speculation may seem, I just think there could be some roundies in Brazil for someone who may want to look for them.
Here's something almost as crazy: I live close to Miami and I love the history of Miami and I love being there. I have always been very comfortable with Spanish/Latin people but I don't speak the language. My life involves much stuff to make it hard for me to take time out to learn Spanish so I put it off. It is kinda akward to be with Latin people who are my "freinds" when they speak their own language. In Miami I have seen homes and business that are full of old stuff, more than I see in "American" peoples' places. So, I am going to try to learn Spanish to go to old TV shops and maybe I will get lucky! I mean to find a TV not sex(haha). The Latins love to make love!
The old RCA shop I recently posted info on was operated by a great man named Bob Rinker and when I spoke of a CTC-15, etc. he seemed to respond as though he thought I might be a little nuts.

Do you get that a lot?

You should hook-up with Carmine!
 

I think you guys think alike!

Been reading my posts?

Who told you I was Siciliano Bobby? More importantly. . who showed you my tax records? Or are you just making dumb stereotypes, Like everybody in brazil is poor? (Its one of the wealthiest countries on earth, you tool.) . . . and for the record, I drive Imperials and New Yorkers. More of a drivers car, and the trunks are still big enough to get the job done.

Wow... and he's got a temper!
 

I am glad he doesn't have my address!
If I were to judge him by his words I'd say he may even be the mafia type!(lol)

For starters: Who do you know who named Carmine who loves spaghetti who is not Italian? Is there something wrong with being Italian? I love Italians as well as all people who try to do the right thing by others.
Your writings strongly suggest you have alot of money and plenty of free time. Is there something wrong with that? I don't think so. Sounds like you are extremely fortunate to say the least. It would not surprise me at all if you deserve all you have.

Brazil is one of those countries that is more or less devoid of any real middle class. You are either very rich where you can become educated and do all you desire or you are more or less dirt poor and lucky to have a servants job.
Is the Oprah show a suitable reference to support that? I think so.
Do Italians not drive Imperials and New Yorkers? I certainly would. I love Chryslers too!

Are you going to tell us that Cadillac in your avatar is not yours? Maybe it is your daddy's car? It is very sharp. Does it also have the sunroof?

I am always amazed by those who want others to think they have little money. I am sure I have come across that way in other posts I have written. Most who claim to be budgeted usually have enough money to do anything they want. Is it possible that the fact our country has at least 6.5 million millionaires something that helps support my observations?

I would not be one bit surprised if Carmine is a millionaire and again, I say, I would not be surprised if he deserves all of his great fortune.

I do not make "dumb stereotypes". I speak about what I gather from a multitude of other sources to get feedback to help me become a better person for myself and others as well. Is there something wrong with that?

I have faith in my heart and mind that I will become educated welll enough to always do the right thing by others and thereby become able to have all I need and maybe some of what I want.

Well Bobby, lets just all make nice and get back to the tv's.

Yes sir good fella.
 

Very good advice!

Color TVs
 

Well, I am sorry to disappoint you, but I really didn't get evidence to support the idea that more of those 300 sets have survived. I really don't have much of a clue to the behavior of people about preserving old stuff, but it seemed, for example, that many 50's and 60's black and white TVs survived in the city of São Paulo, and almost none in the city of Rio de Janeiro...I don't know why, but I have this theory that the people of the city of São Paulo tend to be more conservative than that of Rio, because São Paulo is rainy, cold, above sea level, while Rio is hot and have beaches...here in Brazil people joke and say that the people of São Paulo "carry the country in their backs" ( are very hardworking people ), while the people of Rio stay on the beach all day long, don't work at all, just play soccer, music and look for beautiful women. It's all stereotype, of course, but it gives some perspective on the character of the people's of the two citys. I can't post a picture of the round color TV my friend has, because he lives very far from me, and I only seen his TV once; the other guy I don't know him, I just saw his collection of movie related stuff and early TV years ago in a TV programm.

I did a little researching on the Net about those 1963 color experiences, and I could only find three photos. One is very tiny, is an ad for RCA Victor color TVs; the other is an ad promoting the color broadcasting of "Bonanza"; and the last one shows a lady that is in brazilian TV since day one in 1950, in fact she still apears in soap operas today, and in the picture she is posing with one early color TV camera - I never seen this model of color TV camera in the many sites devoted to the subject, anyone is familiar with that one?

Thank you very much!
 

I appreciate the info!
I heard Bonanza was broadcast in color since '59.
It is very cool to think of the pretty lady still doing her thing to this day.

That is a great shot of the camera.

Can somebody identify that camera and the year it came from?

Thanks!

1. i hate that. i like to know what went into the products I use
2. :(
3. yeah. it's really fun, especially with "weird" stuff like fixing TVs, to find another fellow TV geek to talk about stuff liket his with
4. mmhmm

Its doubtful that many of the 300 imported sets would have survived, because Brazil adopted their own unique PAL variant (PAL color on M system video).
I'd presume these sets would have been straight NTSC if they were off the regular production line.

A conversion to PAL or simple PAL on a NTSC roundie would likely be a thread on to its own.

Doubftful but possible!
 

I figured out how to find any of the remaining original 300 sets!

First, I could get small "Wanted" posters printed with the different models that were originally imported. Then, I could got to all the small towns in and around Brazil posting them in the areas were the poor people would see them.
Of coarse there would be a reward.
I suspect that there are still some old poor people that have them either because they like the look of the cabinet to put things on or some may be smart enought to imagine that someday somebody will pay money for it!

40 to 50 years ago
 

:thumbsdn:

OK you "Doubting Thomas"
 

My roundie came from a home that remained unused and furnishised from 1973 to about 2005.

Stranger things have happened and will keep happening.

That's one way to blow a trust fund....

If I had a trust fund
 

I wouldn't use it to look for sets in Brazil until after I find the ones left here in the USA. I wish I could try to find the roundies that still may exist in some of the beautiful condos built in the 50's & 60's here in southeast Fla.
That is the biggest challenge I am faced with in my life right now.

In other words, I have been unable to forget about the fact that many great people are leaving this world every minute of everyday and I am certain that many of them have answers to every question I or anybody else may need.
Answers that could help me do more with my life than simply satisfy my own needs and wants. Somehow it has been burned in my mind that I can never be content with my own life unless I help others live better as well. Some say I am wrong and I will never believe them. I think many people think they are doing very much for others but if that were true our country would not have so many easy to solve problems.

So, one of my life goals is to come to be able to meet those people who may not be around much longer for the purpose of finding the few who would like to share advice and memories.

I can think of few things more exciting than finding that man or woman or couple who would love to have their TV or radio repaired and spend the day talking about anything that comes to mind.

Ditto Bobby.:yes: My '56 Philco roundie came from a home that remained unused and furnishised from 1964 to 2005

strange things
 

Well, although I remain skeptical about the possibility of more of those 300 roundie color sets coming to the surface, I have to admit that not only strange, but really bizarre stuff do happen. Some years ago, in a small town in the state in which I live, a guy found a brand new, never used 1920's Ford automobile resting completely desassembled in a farm. I don't remember if it was a Model T or a Model A. The story is pathetic: since 1919 all Ford's were imported to Brazil as CKD's ( Completely Knocked Down kits ) and assembled at a local Ford plant. This farmer thought that he could save money by buying the CKD and finding someone in his area to do the assembling, or maybe even doing it himself. Fact is, there was no one nearby able to do it, and so the car spent more than 70 years unused. If only I knew this family was so silly: I was told that they exchanged this ultra-rare find for an air conditioner for their house!

And in 1985 a similar thing happened: in a warehouse in a port people found a 1955 "Oval Window" VW Beetle that was also never used! Someone imported the car in 55 but didn't had the money to pay the import tax. So it spent three decades resting, until it was discovered.