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I rarely find any old TV's in my immediate area. Sometimes, I'll place a "free pick-up of non working TV's" in the local paper and that usually generates a bunch of calls; but, I usually end up getting 20 BPC sets before something old comes my way. Garage/Estate sales and generally a bust and "old TV" to them is the 2002 silver durabrand that was just replaced by a flatscreen. I guess the most recent local vintage TV score for me was over a year ago when I found a Philco Safari in a flea market. Everything else mostly came from out of town. About a year or so ago, I placed an ad in the local paper that read, "WANTED: Od TV's, working or not, with knob style tuners that were made between the 1940's and early 1970's". You wouldn't believe the number of calls I received from people wanting to sell me their 3 year old Symphonic's and their '90's era Zenith consoles with weak CRT's. Believe me, it was real hard to keep from saying, "The ad says '40's-'70's, which means that I don't want your junk from the last ten years". The only set that I got as a result of that ad was a beat up late '70's 19" Zenith B&W.
Back in the '90's, I was finding tube and early SS TV's on a regular basis. Most of the tube sets consisted of '50's B&W consoles, '60's and '70's rectangular color console and portable sets, and portable B&W sets from the '60's and '70's. I remember bringing home 2 or 3 color roundie sets and one RCA 10" round screen B&W. Unfortunately, back then, I wasn't interested in saving old TV's. TV's were something for me to fix and sell so I could finance my antique radio collecting. And, at that point in time, I could sell just about any working TV that I got my hands on.
I think the reason old TV's were more common in the '90's is because there were still lots of people around who were old enough to own such a set. Now, many of those folks are no longer with us and their belongings have already been disposed of. Also, the early-to-mid '90's was a time when the last "daily driver" tube type TV's were taken out of service in favor of newer TV's.
I predict that in 10-15 years, it will be hard to find a '90's era TV, let alone anything from the '70's or before. Another thing to consider is that we live in a disposable society. Most of the people that I used to get old TV's from lived through the depression and they know how hard it is to buy something. When the old TV died, it went to the basement. When a cousin on my Dad's side passed away, they gave me 3 old TV's that were in her basement - An early '50's 21" Westinghouse B&W, an early '60's 17" RCA portable, and a mid '60's Motorola 23" color TV in a metal cabinet. I figure that when one TV went out, it went to the basement and was replaced by a newer set. Today, most people are certainly not going to save anything when it dies. In fact, their TV may not even have to die before they trash it. Just let something new come along and they'll go max out the credit card just so they can say "look what we have".
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