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I think the state of mind, the spirit, the mentality of a place might be also important on determining if something like old TVs will survive or not. I believe, from personal experience, that hot places with beaches are less favorable to vintage TV collectors. Here in Brazil, the first two cities to have television were São Paulo ( September 18, 1950 ) and Rio de Janeiro ( January 20, 1951 ). Very old sets, even a few roundies that most likely might have shown the inaugural broadcast still appear in São Paulo today. In Rio de Janeiro it's extremely hard to find sets from even the late 50's or early 60's.
The fact that so little seems to have survived in Rio de Janeiro puzzles me, but I think there are a number of factors. First and more important to me is the fact that Rio is a tropical city, with very hot weather and beaches. People tend to be much less conservative, and in this case the word conservative carry all the meanings this word have. People want much more to have fun than to care to preserve or store old things. If something goes obsolete, it goes to the trash pretty quickly. That might also explain why it seemed to be so difficult to see vintage ( 1940's and 50's ) table radios in that city as well, when I lived there. On a curious note, however, there was a nice number of 1930's, 40's and 50's cars... and that was in the 1980's.
São Paulo is a different story. The city is on higher terrain, there are no beaches near the city, and it does have a colder weather. Also, the city is bigger ( it is on a larger territory ) and so provided more space for the building of larger houses. The people of São Paulo is known to be more conservative ( again, with all the meanings this word have ) than the people of Rio de Janeiro. São Paulo is a true heaven for a Brazilian vintage TV collector... the older sets I have I got there. Not only televisions, but for all sorts of nice vintage stuff from the 1900's to the 1970's, that place is kind of a paradise.
Also, Italian people seem to care to preserve or store this kind of stuff much more than Portuguese people. And Rio is mostly Portuguese, while São Paulo is VERY Italian ( with also an IMMENSE number of Japanese people ).
Both cities are on the Southeast. I live in the South, in another hot city with beaches and lots of tourists. Very difficult to find nice vintage stuff here, either. Since Brazil is an extremely large country, television only appeared here in this city in 1964. In the South of Brazil, the first TV station went on the air on December 20, 1959. I live here in this town since 1991, and in all this years, I have seem only TWO 1960's TV sets: a 1962 Philips 23 inch with radio and phonograph, that was sometime around 1995, I think. It was in an used furniture store, and the people were asking US$ 45,00 for it. Didn't bought it, because I had ZERO money. It sat there for months and months, until it was finally sold to someone. The only other I saw was a few days ago, in an antique store: a 1961/62 23 inch ABC. This time I was much more happier: I bought and it's at my house already. I was going to take pictures of it today, but I got sick and didn't felt well to take pictures. If I get better I will take the pictures tomorrow.
I know that there was quite a nice number of big sets, consoles and the like, made between 1961 and the late 60's here. No doubt they are all in TV heaven now... my investigations led me to the sad conclusion that the overwhelming majority of those TVs were destroyed long ago. Again, like Rio de Janeiro, here is a hot town, not very conservative ( actually, this city where I live today was quite a hippie spot in the 1970's ), a town with beaches, AND founded and populated mostly by Portuguese people - so many coincidences ( even the topography of both cities are very much alike ) that some people say that here is a "miniature Rio de Janeiro."
Ah, and before someone say something, I have ZERO Italian blood and LOTS and LOTS of Portuguese blood on my ancestry line... so there is no prejudice on what I am talking about here, just an objective analisys.
In the neighbor state of Rio Grande do Sul ( where TV began in Southern Brazil in 1959 ) we found quite a nice number of nice late 50's and early 60's sets there - hell, we have seem there even TVs that were NOT supposed to be there, like mid-50's TVs. Nice late 50's TVs, including some Predictas, appear there from time to time. Rio Grande do Sul is VERY cold, the majority of the population live away from the beaches, and there is a VERY large number of descendants of Italian people there. Many collectors and restorers of tube radios and tube TVs live there as well.
Also, it was a much richer state than where I live ( I believe it still is ).
So, from personal experience, I would say that the places to find nice vintage TVs are not only old cities that were very rich in the past, but also important is to look for rich, affluent cities located in colder, higher areas with no beaches nearby. People tend to store old radios, TVs, refrigerators and all sorts of interesting vintage stuff much more on those colder-no beach cities than on the hotter, sunny touristic places.
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