[Jeffhs]

[QUOTE=heathkit tv]....think about it, at the time so few people could afford TV so what better thing to draw more customers into a bar than a TV?
Anthony [\QUOTE]

Especially a big set like that DuMont. I hate to think how much that particular set sold for when it was new--probably a grand or more (in late-1940s dollars). My aunt had a Stromberg-Carlson b&w console in the early '50s, same cabinet style as the DuMont under discussion here but white. I also hate to think how much her set cost new--again, perhaps in the $300-400 range (it was TV only, no radio or phono).

You're right; in the late '40s few people could afford TV, and from what I hear the '50s weren't much better in that regard (at least until the small portables came on the market in the latter part of the decade). When my folks were married in the mid-'50s their first TV set was a used RCA 21" console, followed, IIRC, by a used Crosley Super V 21" console (both monochrome--heaven knows they couldn't afford color in those days, but then again, neither could most folks 50 years ago). The first new TV I can ever remember us having was a Silvertone all-channel 17" portable in the mid-'60s, and even that was b&w. For some reason, my folks never had a color TV--as I mentioned, all our sets were b&w. The first color set to grace the living room of our house (aside from an old Silvertone roundie I got from a neighbor in my hometown in 1970, which remained in the basement) was my grandmother's 1971 Silvertone 25" color console; she brought it with her when she moved into the house in 1972, after my dad married his second wife and we wound up moving to another town.