While cleaning the set I found a date stamped inside the antenna holder. I checked two other sets with antennas and they too have the date stamped inside, they (the antennas at least, were made within a two week period between 5/9 and 5/18 of 1956)
Here's a 1956 calendar:
http://www.flicklives.com/Timeline/1956_cal.html
The grey set has the lowest serial number but the latest date on the antenna so either it's not original or the antenna date has nothing to do with the sets date of manufacture?
The other two were dated 6 days and 7931 sets apart.
Counting the weekend that is 4 working days between sets or 1982 sets made in 4 days.
I'm thinking this would be an interesting set to start a serial number database on, they are plentiful so there should be a lot of data.
Many of them don't have (original) antennas, I would have to look inside and see if there is a more reliable way to date them.
Whadda you think? Good idea?
Eric