Videokarma.org TV - Video - Vintage Television & Radio Forums - The Philco 48-1000 that almost got away.

Just in case anyone was wondering what ever happened to the Philco 48-1000 set on CL a few weeks ago for $50 in the Albany area: (http://www.videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=264190) here's the rest of the story.

A friend of mine spotted the ad about a day before it was announced here on VK and clued me in. I immediately contacted the seller, indicating my intentions to restore the set back to it's former glory, and I also sent him a picture of my Blond Philco Predicta (my Avatar) that I restored several years ago. He was very receptive to my e-mail and loved the Predicta. The next day he wrote that he was now receiving many e-mails from other collectors interested in the set, saying that some were offering him substantially more than his asking price. But, he said, money wasn't everything and he wanted it to go to a good home, and he liked what I had to say. I assured him it would be well taken care of here, and the deal was sealed. (And yes...it was sold to me for $50.)

The only problem was I had to figure out some way to get it from Glen Falls, NY to Harpers Ferry, WV, about a 7 hour trip each way. The seller didn't want to deal with shipping and wanted the set gone ASAP. As luck would have it, my partner had a business trip planned to the Detroit area last week. He offered to make a detour to Glen Falls on his way back home, and I eagerly took him up on his offer, and the rest is history.

The set is in excellent physical condition, but looking inside it apparently lived most of it's life in a household with smokers. The chassis and components are covered with sticky smokers tar. The main power transformer is pretty rough looking, not sure why since the rest of the chassis doesn't show the same moisture damage. I checked the crt and initially it was totally dead. I cooked it for a while and it brought the emissions up a bit, but still not real strong. The true test will be to see what kind of picture it can produce after the set is restored. But in any event, I have a spare crt just in case I need it.

That's the whole story so far. Not ready to start work on it yet, still working on my RCA Berkshire projection set and hope to have that done sometime soon. Once that's out of the way I can concentrate on the Philco. I've been looking for one of these for a long time. It seems that whenever one shows up it's either way overpriced, in really poor physical condition, or too far away. This is the first one in a long time that really fit the bill and I'm happy and excited to have it.

Take a look.

Bob