G'day all.
I have recently gotten in touch with an Aussie vintage TV and electronics collector, he has a website illustrating his interest in old TVs and electronics
http://cool386.tripod.com/ .
Anyways I have paid him a visit yesterday to pick up some vintage video gear he was giving away and he showed me his collection of old TVs and other gear. He has an AMAZING collection of vintage TVs (mostly pre 1970 B&W) and probably the largest collection in Australia as he has upwards of 200 TVs. He has a lot of pre-1960 Australian TVs, some he has restored to very good working order and showed me in operation!
He has even imported some very early B&W TV sets from USA and UK, two to mention are a 1949 Airline badged Sentinel 400TV from USA
http://cool386.tripod.com/400tv/400tv.html and a 1950 EKCO TC140 from UK. Expanding on the 1949 Airline set, he has modified the TV to Australian 625 line 25fps standard to view Australian television on it, he showed me the TV in operation and it pulls up a decent watchable picture!
He also has made his own vintage style B&W valve TV from a vintage 1958 Radio, Television & Hobbies magazine using a vintage green electrostatic CRT made way back in 1943, the picture is dim so best viewed in the dark but looks pretty good.
I have made some videos of his sets in operation including the Airline and have uploaded them to my YouTube channel:
1957 EKCO TX-287 (UK)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgw52IbRNB0
1949 Airline 400TV (USA)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmcTAWWBCFg
1956 Healing (Australia)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQUW9ZmtLeo
Homemade valve TV
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqJfFZAcVSI
1958 TV (AWA I think) (Australia)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hJRKhiE6Os
He even gave me a nice looking medium sized 1968 PYE B&W TV which works excellent, I'm going to use that TV as my regular viewing TV for early pre-1975 Aussie B&W programs like Division 4, Matlock Police, Number 96, In Melbourne Tonight (Graham Kennedy) etc...
Anyways it was quite a thrilling experience to see these rare TV sets first hand, particularly the Airline and EKCO as they predate the introduction of TV in Australia by several years!
I have attached some photos of the sets mentioned below, as there's more than 6 I will attach the rest in the next post.