1949 Sparton 4940 mirror lid set.
 

Last week a friend of mine who knew i liked old tv sets told me that she knew someone with a really old wood cabinet set that could be for sale. She couldn't remember the brand but said it was wood upright cabinet where the crt faced up and you watched the screen on a mirror attached to the lid. My first thought was OMG! a RCA trk-12!?!? Well no but it is a 1949 Sparton 4940 in pretty nice condition. the thing that amazed me was that it has channel 1 thru channel 8 on the dial. I thought channel 1 was dead before 49. He didn't exactly say how much he wanted for it but i "think" he would take a few benjamins for it. I don't have the room for it and am not making any commission for letting any of y'all know about it. here are a few pics.

Complete with what looks like the manual. Cool!

Nice example. These never where high on the list with TV collectors. The reason is the styling in very square and nondescript. It is definitely unusual and worthy of preserving though. I was always curious how the tuner works on those. I just see the one fine tuning knob in the center of that gold cup. Is it a continuous tuner? Since it has channel one, it must be from '48, although I always thought it was a '49. Most companies had very similar models in both '48 and '49. By '48 channel one was gone for TV, and off TV dials by mid-year.

Deleted, wrong info

To the right of the fine tuning is another knob which says station select and changes the channel, supposedly this set goes up to 13 but another member on the FB vintage tv forum thinks the drive belt has slipped and it stops at 13 but the indicator just says 8. This set was brought from the northern areas of the US as tv didn't come to middle TN until 52/53.

I see. Thank you. It's an unusual set-up.

Sparton 4940
 

I have one of those. The tuner is an unusual arrangement. It is built like a large series of slide switches, for lack of a better way to describe it. The tune circuits are on a "sled" which slides back and forth when the channel selector is moved. This set has several odd design elements for its time. For one thing it uses a osc./amp to produce the HV. It is independent of the sweep. My experience with those is that they seem to be problematic. I have never had any trouble with the Sparton. It produces a very good picture and is one of my favorite and most watched sets. I'm fairly sure mine does not have channel one and it definitely covers 2-13. I wonder if is possible the one is from 11?
The prop rod holding the lid up would be of some concern to me. It shouldn't be there. One of the nice things about this set is that the lid can be opened to any angle, so it can be adjusted to be viewed at a wide variety of seating heights. The power switch is operated by opening the lid.
This site offers some insight into the circuit: http://members.iinet.net.au/~cool386...n/sparton.html

The biggest issue I had in restoring mine (all electrolytic and paper caps replaced before ever applying power the first time) were bad mica caps and resistors drifting with temperature in the vertical and horizontal oscillators. I think I wound up replacing ever cap and resistor in the oscs before they ever became stable.

I hope you grab it. They are really a very nice set.

That must be it because I've always known that set to be from 1949, and no set had channel one on the dial by then. I also want to say that although the set never caught on much with collectors, it is definitely still an oddity. I'd have one myself if I had the space.

I ran the channels from 1 to 8 where it stopped "because of some sort of bind up?" I dunno i'm not sure where up north this set came from, maybe Michigan. Did Canada broadcast on channel 1? :dunno:

Some early post-war sets like Philco had only 8 channels to select from, which is really all you needed. That is very likely the case with the Sparton. You could choose the slugs in the tuner to receive which were available in the buyers area. From what I know no stations ever broadcasted on channel 1.

Stewart Warner also made a post-war mirror in lid set...I have 2 such sets in kinda mediocre condition...I plan to make them into one fairly perfect set and one fixer-upper for someone else to have fun with.

The S-W is definitely a rarer one.

I want fewer sets, not more, but I think I'd have to make room for one of these if it showed up locally. I love the novelty factor of the mirror lid. And Sparton? They danced to their own drummer. I had a side-by-side radio/phone combo from them, same age, back in the 80's. A great performer.