[ChrisW6ATV]

As I think about the "restore versus preserve" question, here is an example I came up with: What if someone found a 1920s or 1930s Duesenberg, of a model that was either unknown before or maybe only the second one known to exist, that had not been touched since 1938? Even if the paint was in very good condition, would the collector community prefer to leave its original but falling-off-rotted tires and hoses on the car, and maybe moth- or rodent-eaten upholstery visible from several feet away? What if the same car was found, but in a leaky garage or barn, so its paint was in poor shape and the body had plenty of rust? Is there a "typical" level of one-time and/or ongoing work done on any such unique or near-unique vehicles from 75 or more years ago, whether those vehicles were found in 2005 or have been cared for since, say, 1950?

My experience with museums is that things almost always look "like new", or very close to it. In the case of mechanical or electronic items in museums, I always think that they would work fine as well (either from restoration or some magical condition where they never deteriorated), even if I am wrong about that. In the bigger picture, are any one of us TV collectors intending to preserve things only for the most scholarly historians in the future, or for any average person to see them and say "Wow, black-and-white video on a big, heavy wooden box! Cool!", or for someone in between?

I am mostly in the "restore with minimal externally-visible changes" group. So, I will always re-stuff can-type electrolytic capacitors, but I will use modern parts as-is under the chassis. I have a set that will force me to make a tough decision one day, because it IS a near-one-of-a-kind item: a 1956 Muntz 721CV color TV set, the only one known with a mahogany cabinet, and also likely the only one with its original tuner. Do I restore it (including re-stuffing all wax capacitors on its visible PC boards), or leave it alone? It has a (likely RCA-built) CTC-5 Super chassis, so it would not be unique in any way as a working set.