Quote:
Originally Posted by jr_tech
|
Yes, EXACTLY! Those advertisements are very easy to find on eBay. Philco at least spent a lot of money to PROMOTE the Predicta line, even if the sets themselves were design statements (and servicing nightmares!)
Mine was cherry-picked out of a pile of old TVs by an East Coast TV recycling company a couple of years ago. It cost me TEN TIMES more than I paid for it on eBay to have it shipped to central Indiana. And I've spent many times more than that having the chassis rebuilt. It's still not working perfectly, so there's more work to be done (particularly on the touch horizontal oscillator tube connections and picture tube connections.)
Mine is a WALNUT version. The unit in the ad is a "blond" wood. Interesting to note that the TV ad does NOT show the power cord and no external TV antenna hookup (although the slots are there for the wires.) It has a "built in" antenna along the inside of the cabinet, which is an interesting idea but doesn't work with a hoot!
I've spent all this time on a 21-inch black-and-white TV because I just love the design. In person, it's MUCH SMALLER than it appears in the ad -- in part because of where the photographer must have been crouched to get the "room divider" look.
And it swivels, too.
A great piece of 1959 history (high praise coming from an RCA guy!)