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: