[Jeffhs]

I also hope the CRT in your new (to you) CT-100 is good, and the TV itself works well, considering its age. However, I would not expect the set to work "like new", considering it was built in 1954. You will almost certainly have to replace tubes and perhaps rotted wiring under the chassis, not to mention doing a full reconvergence of the color CRT. I would not even think of plugging the set into an AC outlet and turning it on before the set has been thoroughly tested. As I am about to explain, this television is extremely rare and probably has the proverbial "million and one" things wrong with it, such as bad tubes, defective capacitors (especially power supply filter caps), off-tolerance resistors, and other things too numerous to mention.

The CT-100 is a very rare TV, as it was one of the first (if not in fact the first) mass-produced color sets, very likely with a very steep price tag as well. My guess is very few people owned one of these unless they were rich, had won the lottery, or had inherited a fortune (before taxes, of course) from a deceased relative.

There weren't that many TV stations in the United States broadcasting color programming when this TV was new, so the chances are most of the programming seen on these sets was broadcast in b&w, with the occasional (I stress the word occasional) color program in prime time.

Most network news broadcasts of the 1950s were shown in b&w, with the exception of NBC's nightly news which was always broadcast in, as that network always put it, living color. NBC was America's "full color" television network, and of course they made a big point of that every chance they had. "The following program is brought to you in living color on NBC" was always announced before every color show on the network, with a full-color peacock spreading its feathers during the announcement.

BTW, I would guess anyone who saw the NBC peacock in b&w (given the steep price of color television sets in the '50s, most homes with TV had only one b&w TV in the living room) wished they had a color TV. However, most viewers did see the bird in black and white until color sets became affordable. No doubt most American living rooms with color TV were showplaces during the 1950s through the eighties, as most folks, as I said, could not afford the first color televisions; those who did have a color set probably guarded the set as if it were made of gold, and did not allow children anywhere near it unless an adult was present.