[etype2]

Bringing it back on topic. Steve, your point about advertising is well taken ..... but, for instance the RCA 21CT55. It seems they did about zero advertiseing on that set which was only available a short time (6 months?). Other then the "Big Color" ad found by Wayne, I have not been able to find a single ad, only things in RCA technical publications.

There was one ad showing all the parts of the set laid out in front of it, but that was in an RCA publication. After extensive searching, I did find one obscure ad by a tire company of all things in South Boston, Va. published January 20, 1955 and that's it.

On the Sony KV 7010U Chromatron, I have searched everywhere I can think of and can't come up with one single ad or dealer handout. Only the service manual. Even queried the Sony Archive Museum in Tokyo and they know nothing of it.

Back in the 80's before computers, the only way an enthusiast could find information was from magazines or newspapers. I learned about the Sharp Crystaltron 3 inch color LCD from magazines. It was a breakthrough product at the time and I wanted one. Could not find a single ad anywhere so I looked up the nearest Sharp distributer near me. They were in Sacramento, CA. Called and they indeed had the Crystaltron. I made arrangements to meet him, he had it in three colors and I ended up buying from a distributor! Today on the internet, I can find manufacture ads on the Crystaltron, but at the time no ads could be found.

In the case of the Admiral 15 inch color set, it was a real niche market in 1954. You either had to be well heeled or a techie/early adopter. RCA had name recognition and the money to advertise, plus the fact they were the top daug, big promoters of color television with an enormous vested interest to succeed. I think Admiral was watching what RCA did carefully and whenever RCA launched a new product, they responded in kind, but on a much smaller scale. Color TV in 1954 was very slow for the reasons Steve said earlier. Both manufacturers terminated production of their first sets about the same time. I have found newspaper articles verifying this. If you read the biography of the President of Admiral, you will get insights into the man. He wanted to be first with innovation.

I suspect that other dealers like Beacon TV had the Admiral sets in their stores, but sold very few if any. RCA had the name, if folks were going to spend that big money for a color set, it was going to be an RCA. That is my personal view and two cents.