Location, Location, Location

[Electrohome]

Hello, to fellow collectors here on Audiokarma who collect vintage TV sets-
I am wondering that I seem to notice a vast majority of our TVs tend to be found either on the East Coast which includes- New York, Ohio, New Jersey, Michigan, Wisconsin, The New England area-which is the north-eastern US, the West Coast-California(a very common state to find vintage TVs in that area), and in pretty well all larger cities of over 100,000 people in these areas. As I have studied eBay, very few TVs tend to be found in the Mid Western Rural States and in most rural areas as I have observed.
I have noticed 1 collector on here who lives in a city with less than 40,000 people that he tends to find very little in vintage TVs.
I am wondering if any other collectors here notice this trend as well too-just curious. Usually, a lot of small, conservative towns will have almost nothing in the way of vintage TVs while the bigger, liberal cities tend to have a fair bit of the vintage TVs as well as several or a lot of good Antique Malls, Antique Stores, real Flea Markets that sell real stuff and not that cheap junk with lots of good vendors and even pretty good second-hand stores that tend to stay away from the yard sale junk and do good Estate Sales instead and won't rip you off money$$-wise either. Hopefully, this should be a good, basic guide to our valued members who collect and restore vintage TVs on where to find vintage TVs and yes, also saving that $$$money$$$ as well too when it comes to gas for the car/truck/van/SUV and always keep a good Road Atlas and plenty of Road Maps handy to keep a good handle on those vintage TV "hot-spots" as well. Well, happy hunting to the vintage TV collectors here and all the best in 2009

[bgadow]

It makes sense that the really old stuff would only be found where the earliest TV stations were on the air-the coast, basically, and then the other principal cities. Large swaths of America were out of TV range for a lot of years.

I live in a rural area, and it was much more rural back around 1947-yet a good rooftop antenna could pick up D.C.

Some areas had homes with more storage than others. With farmsteads and big houses, basements and attics, you can store all those old radios and tv sets. Big difference at the other extreme, an apartment in the city. But maybe easier to get rid of a set in the country, too, as you could just haul it to the dump pile in the woods.

[marty59]

My area is still very young and continuing to grow. I'll avoid your "Conservative-Liberal" rationale. But I can tell you that around here, basements are pretty much non-existant given the soil conditions and folks don't have stuff in newer developments. You get into some older neighborhoods where the population is "turning over" and some treasures can be found. And with the temperature extremes here if something was stored in an uncontrolled environment such as an attic or shed then it's chance of survival is bad. An attached garage may be better.. IMO there isn't much of an "Abundance" of stuff to be found, but things do show up and timing is everything!

[jeyurkon]

Originally Posted by bgadow

It makes sense that the really old stuff would only be found where the earliest TV stations were on the air-the coast, basically, and then the other principal cities. Large swaths of America were out of TV range for a lot of years.

I live in a rural area, and it was much more rural back around 1947-yet a good rooftop antenna could pick up D.C.

Some areas had homes with more storage than others. With farmsteads and big houses, basements and attics, you can store all those old radios and tv sets. Big difference at the other extreme, an apartment in the city. But maybe easier to get rid of a set in the country, too, as you could just haul it to the dump pile in the woods.

I grew up in the western border of PA in the sticks. In the early 50s we received stations from Youngstown Ohio, Pittsburgh PA and Cleveland Ohio with a rotatable antenna and booster. Lots of knobs for a kid to play with!

We had 5 acres with dump at the rear. Same with my neighbors and I would find electronics in theirs.

I too have been trying to figure out why some areas seem devoid of vintage sets. It doesn't seem very simple.

John

[tasha]

Think in terms of money instead of conservative/liberal. Rural areas tend to be less affluent than metropolitan areas. The big divide in who had and who didn't have early TV's in the Appalachians was the cable system. Technically my town is just a hop skip and a jump by signal standards from several broadcast stations. The issue for good reception is whether there is a mountain in the way. Of course there are a dozen or more in the way and so that fueled the development of cable TV. I still find pieces of the original system that was run in the late 40's when I dig around certain areas of the yard. And of course, in the rural areas, if it was beyond repair, the dump was the place to go. My parents bought a new '55 Philco before they married. What way to start, in debt with the latest entertainment device! It was a good one tho, lasted until 1968.

[Electrohome]

Hello, I think using the word Money to best fit the situatuon on finding TVs is a lot better than using the liberal/conservative descripition. I do agree saying Affluent-those who had the money to buy TVs as opposed to the Thrifty who didn't have the money to buy TVs and mostly listened to the radio. I was think that conservative also meant those who saved their money and didn't buy a lot-like TVs and spent only on necessities, not so much on luxury items like TVs 50 years ago as opposed to liberal-those who had the money and spent it on luxury items like TVs, electric appliances, or even color TVs and fine furniture to fully deck out that really nice house as well and also went on trips and vacations and had a really good-paying job.
Your also right about new neighborhoods also having very little as well as opposed to older neighborhoods having more stuff with the older people as well in their 60s-80s who are retired/just retired who had a good paying job as well. Those beautiful, old homes generally have antiques a lot more on occasion as well-Cheers

[Dan Starnes]

I live in the midwest and travel for my job. I believe finding old sets lies in the population. TV stations went to the major markets and grew from there. For example, St. Louis MO had tv way before my home town of Quincy IL, which did not get tv till 1952 I believe. So I find very very few tv sets around here, and if I do seldom are they old enough to be from the 50's.
Dan

[Sandy G]

Yeah- a better yardstick might be to see when a given area actually GOT TV-Around here, we didn't see TV til '54, the closest stations otherwise were WBT in Charlotte, WAGA or WSB in Atlanta... They COULD be picked up here, but it was really a hit or miss proposition. You couldn't really "watch" them, it was more of an "Oh, wow, so THAT'S television ? Kewl !" kind of deal.

[Steve McVoy]

This is my experience:

In general, when a city got TV stations will determine the earliest sets you will find. Prewar sets are found about 90% in the New York/NJ/Philadelphia area, with a small number found around Chicago and Los Angeles. I've only heard of one set being found elsewhere.

1945-48 sets are found almost exclusively in the same areas. A few smaller sets, like the Pilot TV-37, seem to be everywhere, probably because they were easy to take with you if you moved to a different city.

1949-50 sets are also found in the midwest, in cities where stations came on the air in 1948-49.

1950 and newer sets can be found just about anywhere, except in areas of the west that didn't get stations until the early or mid 50s. Early color sets can be found anywhere, since by the mid 50s virtually every city had a TV station, and most cities had at least one station broadcasting in color.

More sets are found in wealthy areas, for two reasons. First, wealthy neighborhoods had higher early TV penetration, and second, wealthier households had larger homes, with basements and attics where sets could be stored.

More sets are found in metropolitan areas, because they had better TV reception and were wealthier than rural areas.

A couple of other factors that might be in play: I would suspect fewer early set finds in parts of the country where homes don't have basements or large attics (Florida, for instance). Areas where people spend a lot of time outdoors, like California, may yield fewer sets. I know that cable TV penetration in California in the 50s lagged far behind the rest of the country, as did the average number of TV hours viewed. Maybe TV set sales were also lower than the rest of the country.

Mechanical TV sets are found everywhere, probably because broadcasting was done on AM and SW frequencies and reception was possible anywhere.

[Old1625]

All interesting observations, indeed.

I was born in FL and then we moved to GA. I didn't see much in the way of antique televisions or radios down there, but boatloads in the Northeast where I now have lived since the early 1970s.

It's not to say that I didn't see the occasional relic in the Southeast, but not nearly as often as here.

Columbus, GA back in the '60s had two television stations--WRBL, CH 3 as a CBS affiliate, and WTVM CH 9 as ABC affiliate that also broadcast some NBC programming for a while. There was a spell where we had no NBC coverage, then in the early '70s WYEA CH 38 came along. We did have an NET network station WJSP CH28 that came in with a snowy picture from Warm Springs. But obviously TV had not greatly developed in that area, and there weren't many relic TVs in any attic.

I think that in New England there is a combination of the long-term population density, coupled with the nature of the old-time Yankee to be reluctant to toss away something that might later be repaired and put back into use, that makes antique radios and TVs so plentiful here.

[Steve McVoy]

Another thing I've speculated about is why there are over twice as many surviving American prewar sets than British (as a percentage of sets made). The two reasons I've come up with are 1) American houses are generally larger and 2) There was a lot of destruction during WW2 in England.

Anyone have any other possible explanations?

[jeyurkon]

I think those are the most probable explanations for Britain vs US prewar sets. Unless someone comes up with a war effort donation use. I can't see that.

I was surprised to find the set I was looking for in Georgia. The 1949 Sylvania. I really expected to find one in Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh. Maybe it's the exception that proves the rule.

I wish I could trace its origin. Since the seller picked it up at a thrift store, that's unlikely.

John

[Dave S]

Originally Posted by Steve McVoy

Another thing I've speculated about is why there are over twice as many surviving American prewar sets than British (as a percentage of sets made). The two reasons I've come up with are 1) American houses are generally larger and 2) There was a lot of destruction during WW2 in England.

Anyone have any other possible explanations?

1. We're a nation of packrats. (I mean that, of course, in the nicest possible way ;-)

2. We save old things. They save old things in other countries too, but we're a young country and something like an old TV might seem a lot more old-and-useless rather than old-and-interesting to someone in a country where many people live in houses that were built hundreds of years ago. I've had this called to my attention in a very old neighborhood outside of Guadalajara.

Just guessing!

--Dave Sica

[RobtWB]

My Observations:
It seems that here in southern Illinois most of the "vintage" sets are long gone, probably landfill fodder. This is a rural area, dominated by agriculture, underground mining and at one time strip mining. I remember that while growing up, the abandoned "strip pits" were a free dump, where one could find everything from old washing machines to diapers.
The last "vintage" set I found at an estate sale, in 2007, was a 1967 Zenith 23" low boy console. Interestingly it came out of a 2 story brick home that was probably built in the late 1950's. The home was full of vintage 50's era furniture, including a beautiful Heywood Wakefield dining room set. That home also had 1960's era green carpet throughout!! Every sale I go to it seems that there is an abundance of 1980's and 1990's era RCA, Emerson, Funai etc portable and table top sets. I have also ran across several of those huge RCA home entertainment centers that were so popular in the 90's. I saw one sell for 350$ in 2007, CRAZY!
I continue to go to all the estate sales I can, and occasionally check the SA and GW stores but never expect too much. The last time I checked GW all they had was a beat up old Toshiba Black Stripe tabletop set and a Monkey Ward Signature2000 tv/vcr combo.

[Robert Grant]

Originally Posted by Steve McVoy

Another thing I've speculated about is why there are over twice as many surviving American prewar sets than British (as a percentage of sets made). The two reasons I've come up with are 1) American houses are generally larger and 2) There was a lot of destruction during WW2 in England.

Anyone have any other possible explanations?

Yes.

Sets sold in the UK before the late-1960's (and virtually all sets sold before 1964) were configured for what was then TV system for the UK: 405 lines, 50 fields, positive video modulation, AM audio 3.5 MHz below the video carrier, and VHF channels.
The UK went through an "analog transition". Receivers since the mid-to-late 1960's are designed to receive only UHF transmissions on a different standard (625 lines, 50 fields, negative video modulation, FM audio 6 MHz above the video carrier, and PAL color optional for transmission and reception). The two standards were not compatible with each other (some late 1960's sets were actually dual standard!).
For more than 15 years (15 November 1969 to 1 January 1985), BBC1 and ITV simulcast their programmes on UHF color and VHF monochrome transmitter networks.
So, Imagine yourself in your UK home (smaller on average than the US home), with a TV set that is not only black and white, but only gets two of the three (later four) TV networks. Furthermore, in 1985, virtually useless altogether.
In the US, the addition of NTSC color did not obsolete existing 525 line sets. Even the addition of UHF stations could be dealt with by using a UHF converter. This way, the older sets in the US were still useful long enough for people to keep them, in some cases, until they became so old as to be "classics".

Rob