Found an old Silvertone Surburbanite television on the curbside.
 

Here's a couple pics I snapped of it.

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o121/mrx3750/TV.jpg


Took the cover off to photograph the electronics.
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o121/mrx3750/TV2.jpg


The model is "Model 8158"

I am curious as to what I have here. I know very little about older electronics, and I haven't found out much about this TV other then that it was made sometime in the late 50's.

The TV doesn't work. Plugged it in, turned it on and let it sit and warm up, and nothing.

Wow ! That puppy's super clean...Or looks to be, anyhow. I'd think it was made perhaps in the early-mid '50s. Anyhow, GREAT score !!

Pretty sweet. I would have it restored. Silvertone was the Sears brand name for TVs, Audio and guitars up until the early 70s I believe. I have an early 50s Silvertone radio.

Nice score.

What a geat find!! The set is definitly not "early-mid '50's" but instead late '50's or even 1960. I can't tell for sure but it looks like the thing has the first pc boards utilized. I don't know if that is a good or a bad thing. I would think perhaps there would be a high probability of bad connections to be found on the early printed circuit boards.

The cleanliness to me is always a good sign that perhaps the set has low usage and is not working only because it has been dormant for many years in good, clean, dry, storage. Probably real easy to get going again......

I don't have the knowledge, equipment, nor the money to have it restored. :-(

I've been debating on what to do with it.

If I knew somebody with the time and passion to bring this thing back to life, I would probably give it to them.

If anybody's interested, I can snap some better pics of the electronics.

Speaking for at leat a few I'm sure. Where are you/it located?

Near Detroit MI.

Silvertone model 8158 is in Sams 397-3, which would make it a 1957 or 58 model year set.

i would like a closer picture of the warning on the HV can

That doesn't like to photograph well. However, I finally got a useable photo.

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o...3750/HVcan.jpg

When I was maybe 14 or 15 I tagged along to an antique auction with some folks I knew who were dealers. They had one of these, but a table model, at the sale. I really wanted it, and probably could have bought it for a dollar, but had never participated in an auction before so I let it pass. Years later I was given an identical set-again, just like this but a table model. Must have been a fairly popular series. I borrowed the crt from mine to put in my flashmatic, but someday I'll come across another and I'll get it going.

I'd give this TV to somebody if they were willing to come and get it. I can't restore it, but I don't want to see it getting crushed inside a garbage truck or turned into a fishtank.

WOW!!, i never thought i would ever see one of these again.
this is the same exact model that me & my family watched when we were kids. my dad finally retired the set & replaced it with a GE color set back in 1970. boy that brings back memories. i have not seen one of these sets since that time & i guess that they were rare as hens teeth.

all it would take to get this set going is to replace the filter capacitors & selenium rectifiers.
this chassis used them cheap cardboard/paper/wax multisection capacitors which were prone to early failure. replacing them would be easy.
also, you may need to change the 2CY5 rf amp in the tuner, these were also very "short lived" tubes.
i would say that by doing the above will get the set fully functional again.

it was made in 1958