Spotted an old Philco at S.A. this morning
 

I dont know anything about old tv's but it caught my eye because it was better looking than the normal console tv's at thrifts ect... It was a Philco special 90. It had a knob or two missing and was not working. The guy working there said he plugged it up and it starting smoking. The walnut sides were nice but the speaker fabric underneath was ratty of course. Is this thing worth picking up and doing anything with? It's vcr price cheap.

Need a little more information like model number or more details to be sure. If it is the '56 D line with the single piece chassis, it is a good product. The split chassis are earlier and more plentiful.

Does it have the four small center controls with larger channel and volume controls on the ends?

Not sure what you mean by single chassis? It is mostly square with walnut? sides and top, screen is trimmed with silver colored something kinda rounding
the screen. The knobs are on the front right, I remember a larger one for changing channels with two smaller ones angling upwards with one missing under the larger one. Sitting on 4 legs with speaker fabric under screen at bottom. Looks are quite nice.

Ok, I just called down there and its a model # M9502 chassis # 14N30
Philco special 90

The 14N30 is a 1964 chassis. It is not bad, but not exciting either. By 1964 the industry was focused on color. Black and white consoles were at the end of their product life cycle so emphasis was on cost control as contrasted to features and quality. The basic chassis design was introduced in 1959 and carried over for several years.

I went back and bought it Saturday after work and took it back to the office.
Not sure what to do with it now, is it black and white? can parts be had for it
or could I pirate a later model color tv into it? The screen measures 22" diag.
It would be a looker with the legs refinished and new speaker fabric. The trim
around the screen appears to be silver painted plastic. If it could only talk:scratch2:
previous owners probably watched the Beatles, Elvis, Vietnam war reports,
moon landing and lots of Andy Griffith, Gomer Pyle ect,ect....
Paid 15 bucks for her. I can picture it in my living room with a tube amp on
top and some 60's speakers on each side. My wife would be so proud:mad:

Retrofitting modern color electronics into vintage b&w white cabinets (aka Posterizing when done well; hacking up when done any less well) is viewed dimly around here. We're oriented toward preservation of the entire set, electronics as well as cosmetics.

The big question, though, is what smoked? There are lots of other questions after that, some perhaps bigger questions such as whether the CRT has life left in it.

I applaud you for the save even though it's a later set than I'm generally interested in. If electronic restoration isn't feasible...well...it's your set to do with as you wish. My preference would be to simply make it a static display as opposed to gutting it.

There are a lot of ideas for repurposing an old set but the vast majority (almost every one that I've seen) came out looking a lot worse than just leaving well enough alone. A color set can be retrofitted but few have the skill/patience to do it seamlessly.

That shouldn't be too complicated a chassis. This would be a good one to tinker/learn on.

Well, her she is, all 15 bucks of her.
http://i568.photobucket.com/albums/s...g/DSC02463.jpg
http://i568.photobucket.com/albums/s...g/DSC02464.jpg
http://i568.photobucket.com/albums/s...g/DSC02465.jpg
I'm not into butchering antique american iron or electronics and would
love to see it preserved in its original glory. Even if I could rebuild all the
innards which I cant, I dont have any tv reception being located between
Atlanta and Birmingham in a low area. If I left it at the Salvation Army, some
antique dealer would have probably picked it up and it would most likely
be parked in some store with crystal mugs on top with a 400 dollar price
tag from now on with no worthwhile use. If It would be possible to retrofit
something usable into it, I might consider it but only if its not a desirable
unit. I am into classic stereo receivers/audio ect.. and would never consider
modding a Marantz, Sansui or the like from original. So is this set too
valuable to mod into something useful? I just have no idea, what should I do
with it?

Not that hard to work on, looks like it may have a hot chassis with those compactrons.

Just dont plug it in unless you have a 100watt light in series with it, jic there filter caps are shorted.

if it has a hot chassis then any tube filament can be open and no filaments will light.

Prob just needs the filter caps and maybe a tube or two (easy and cheap).


oh and IMHO its never worth butching up a TV set for a modern tv inside. It can be fixed, prob for cheap, and then used with a DVD and watch old B&W flicks on it.

This might fix it.

One of the tubes has lost vacuum, this will cause the heater to burn out and being a series string set none of them will light.

Look at the tube I've drawn a red square around, the getter looks white, that means the tube has gone to air.

If you can tell us the number someone will probably have one they could send you.

Thanks Eric, I will investigate a little closer tommorow " its at the office" the
pic actually makes the inside look better than it actually is. The wires seem brittleand there are some resistors/componets? that have white rust/corrosion on them not to mention all the dust and cobwebs. Excuse my ignorance, this is the first look for me on the inside of a tv. The large picture tube? in the center has the end glass nipple? broken off also I think. Should I consider even looking for a donor unit or well if I could locate one, its probably just as foul as this one. Looks like a fire hazzard to me at the moment, scared to plug it in after the guy told me it was smoking.

The chassis is pretty dirty as they go, but the dirt doesn't hurt anything. I see some black plastic capacitors in there that should be replaced. An experienced hand could probably have this fixed up and running good within a few hours.

I have a 64 Truetone that I washed the chassis in the shower, sets of that era use mostly plastic parts on the chassis and water won't do much harm if applied judiciously and dried thoroughly.

I wouldn't do that to this set until I had gotten it running first though.

If the glass nipple on the CRT was broken off you'd expect to see the phosphor on the screen blown away. If it is broken, perhaps it was only some excess glass on the nipple.

John