Advertising piece or TV butchery?
 

Is this a real GE promotional item or someones Kitsch art?

http://cgi.ebay.com/RARE-OLD-1930-s-...QQcmdZViewItem

I vote butchery. I don't think anyone would spend the money back in the day to butcher an expensive set just for an advertising sign. That's someone's evil handywork.

I am no expert but it must be butchery.
 

It reminds me of that awful "artwork" on ebay a while back which was a '50's Zenith B/W painted those dreadful '80's Miami pink and turquoise with I love Lucy on it and her face on the screen. I felt bad for the likely starving artist as he was repremanded to the point of saying things that got him banned from here.

W---T----FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

why would you... GROSS. pink... turqiouse.... DIE

Butchery. My thought on that... THHHHHHHHHHH!

:shifty:

It is a cut-up GE 810. There's one on TVHistory.org's site. The butcher kept the outer knobs attached with a screw through each one. The inner knobs are thusly un-attachable and lost. What a waste. Not everyone understands our definition of butchery here.

BTW, I have both an empty cabinet (in better shape) and the factory service lit. I am seriously hoping someone will trade me an RCA 8TS30 cabinet for it. I was going to transfer the guts from a 12" GE "Hexagon", but I've lost interest. Another shameless plug, I admit, but someone may want to appreciate one that has a chance of being restored. PM me if interested in either one.

You are in the right place!
 

I bet someone here will help you get that accomplished!

EXAMPLE ONE:
Years ago, I had a neat genuine bronze lamp for sale. It was nearly five feet tall, and consisted of a large palm tree growing atop a rocky island jutting out of the wavy sea, the latter artistically carved out of the 1-1/5 foot tall laminated blackwood base. There were three tailless Zamboangan monkeys scampering up the tree. and the smallish light bulbs screwed into bunches of dates at the top of the palm tree.The craftsmanship was superb, with individual hairs on the monkeys carved in, etc... and the whole effect was extremely artistic, in an exotic sort of way. It had a documented history of being part of the Japanese National exhibit a major World Exposition in Chicago in the very early part of the 1900s, making it one of the better examples one could find of Japanese bronze work. The patina on it, after decades of gentle exposure to the air and regular dusting/polishing, was rich and beautiful. For those who don't know, patina is critical on antique (or near-antique) bronze works. A unique museum piece by anyone's standards. I hated to sell it, but it was worth thousands and I needed the money for more important things than a lamp. I had just been very lucky to get it for a fraction of its value from an old lady, and enjoyed owning it for a time.

I advertised it for sale in the paper (no internet yet, back then) and one "interior designer" came, took a brief look and agreed to buy it for a fairly high price. As he was writing out the check, he started telling me how great it was going to look after he sprayed the whole thing with fresh white lacquer, to match a white interior he was doing for a client. Horrified, I told him what he could do with the check and showed him the door. He thought I was nuts to turn down a sale when all he wanted to do was "improve the old thing", I thought he was a clueless idiot with no appreciation of art or history.

EXAMPLE TWO:
Another time I was visiting the home of a lady TV exec. in Bombay. She had a gorgeous, antique Indian carved wooden money chest. Thick hardwood, reinforced with hand-forged metal strapping and studs and a big, antique lock. She had taken it to an experienced old locksmith, asking him to make a key for the lock, so that it would be complete and could be locked and unlocked.

When she went back to pick it up, the guy had drilled holes through all sides, top and bottom of the thing, through which he bolted on some hideous shiny aluminum strips, complete with ugly loops to hold modern padlocks. He proudly showed off his handiwork, telling her that it was not only more modern this way, but stronger and more secure than before! He had ruined not only its appearance, but most of its value as a rare antique, because he only understood it as a functional old thing. She has kept it that way, proudly displaying it in her living room as a testament to and a reminder of (she says) just how far her countrymen have to go before they fully join the modern world...

CONCLUSION: Different folks, different strokes. Some people "just don't get it" when it comes to valuing certain things.

A nice 810 lost it's life for this fool's jollies!!!
 

I have one of those 810's. IMHO--it is one of the BEST of the early GE sets. unlike the "locomotive sets", (800 and such) it hahs a FULL tranny powered cold chassis with 2 rectifier tubes and is more like a console in build than a small table model(and it is heavy like one, too!!). It took me a while to get my 810, and it is NOT in any garage or such, but in the basement, where it is nice nad warm in the winter and cool in the summer. The CRT in mine is nice and strong, and I turn it on regularry.

What an IDIOT, to ruin an old , valuable tv like that!!

PS-- I paid considerably LESS for my 810, in good condituion and mostly functional, than the current bid for this "rubbish"!!

Seems to me it depends on when the butchery was committed. It isn't clear from the ad, but the presumption is that is was done a long, long time ago. Given the sun-fading of the bottom of the photo, I would tend to agree. I would think if it was done in 1959 by a TV-reparman, on a ten-year-old TV that was dropped or broken beyond repair anyway, and he put it in his front window or on the main counter, and the novelty of it brought him extra business, then the guy was a certifiable genius.

Or suppose the TV fell off the back of a moving truck, or was in a house fire, and the front panel was all that was salvageable, and somebody did something clever with what was left. Still an idiot?

How about a really poor man, making a toy TV for his daughter's playhouse for Christmas because he couldn't afford better. Yeah, what an idiot.

I remember from my childhood a local repair shop hoisting a complete late 50's Harley chopper up a flagpole and welding it there. He was in business for a long time. The bike stayed hoisted at least 30 years, 'til it got too rusty to be safe. Never mind that now, a 1959 Hog might be worth $20000, at the time it was worth fifty bucks, tops, and it served a much greater purpose, "butchered".

Just have an open mind, before calling anyone an idiot. If I've sensed a trend around here, it's that we seem to do that a lot.

Right now, the thing seems to have $77.50 worth of "novelty" to someone. I bet a complete 810 would have trouble fetching that amount, even now, on eBay. So who's to say?

pardon me...
 

I guess I was just pointing out that it is hard enough to get the old sets now...and so destroying one seems like heresyto me.


But in a way You may be right....if if was done a long time ago, and those sets were still plentiful and of negligable value--It wouldn't have been so bad.

But those(GE 810 sets) often break the $100 mark nowdays--and sometimes in not-so-good condition, too!!

kbmuri said what I was thinking. Stuff like this was often done to old radios and tv sets in the fifties, sixties, seventies and even eighties when the value just wasn't there. Let's say this was done when the set was 20 years old. Who was going to pay good money for a set like this in the late sixties? Okay, what is a twenty year old set today? Something comparable would be a 1986 GE 19" color set. How many of us would pay anything for one?

But I would agree if it was done in "modern times" it was a big mistake.

A little side note: there is an appliance store at the other end of the county, located in a big old building downtown. In the big picture window there are numerous antique appliances (refrigerator, stove, etc.) and there is one of these TV sets, still complete thankfully. I have tried contacting them to see if anything might be hidden around there (they have not been in the TV business for quite awhile) but have not had any luck so far.

Guess I should have chosen a less inflammatory title for this thread. :scratch2:
I actually thought this might have been done a long time ago or to a set that was in poor condition, (hence the bad finish) in which case as pointed out it would have been no big deal.

I really just wanted to know if this was a legit GE advertising piece.