The one thing I miss

[oldtvman]

Back in the day walking into a tv store gave you a similar feeling to walking into a new car dealership. The wooden cabinets had a distinctive new set smell.

[kvflyer]

Yes! I am 66 and I remember that. There were shops all over downtown Baltimore and later, there were shops in the suburbs. There was even a Lafayette Radio store about 1.5 miles from our home.

Tubes on the shelf behind the counter and CRTs in stock...

[DavGoodlin]

I was 8 in 1971 when my parents decided to take the plunge into color TV.
The store was a Zenith and Motorola dealer and smelled like a furniture store mixed with warm dusty electronics.

[oldtvsandtoy]

what does any of this have to do with color tv?

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by oldtvsandtoy

what does any of this have to do with color tv?

Buying the first color TV was a special event, for most first buyers.
Most held off buying one until there were more programs in color, which seemed to be around 1965-6.
Also, many stations had the large capital investment of converting to color programming.
It took a while for a few of the networks to set up for color programming, as well.
Maybe this statement, doesn't have anything to do with color TV, either.

[old_coot88]

'Specially when there were used sets for sale, there was the scent of lemon oil and Old English from keeping the cabinets spiffed up

[Kevin Kuehn]

Even Radio Shack smelled good back in the early days.

[zeno]

Originally Posted by old_coot88

'Specially when there were used sets for sale, there was the scent of lemon oil and Old English from keeping the cabinets spiffed up

In our shop it was the smell of smoke. The 4 insiders all smoked
& when you opened the door it would billow out. Smoke while you
sell, fix, talk on phone, eat, or drop a deuce. We smoked like fiends.
Folks were tolerant back then, not like now. Most now try to carve out
a 100 ft radius where anything you do offends them.

BTW the shop remained smoke friendly to the end abt 4 yrs ago.
We were the last Mom & Pop for miles around. One day abt yr 2000
the board of health came by & hung no smoking within 20' of doors
on the whole strip mall. He came in talked while we smoked & said
nothing, bought a new Sony a few weeks later.

73 Zeno

[Pete Deksnis]

Originally Posted by zeno

In our shop it was the smell of smoke. The 4 insiders all smoked
& when you opened the door it would billow out. Smoke while you
sell, fix, talk on phone, eat, or drop a deuce. We smoked like fiends.
Folks were tolerant back then, not like now. Most now try to carve out
a 100 ft radius where anything you do offends them.

BTW the shop remained smoke friendly to the end abt 4 yrs ago.
We were the last Mom & Pop for miles around. One day abt yr 2000
the board of health came by & hung no smoking within 20' of doors
on the whole strip mall. He came in talked while we smoked & said
nothing, bought a new Sony a few weeks later.

73 Zeno

I'd love to continue the thread with my anti-smoking tale. But can't figure how to connect it to a CT-100!

Pete

[Jon A.]

Originally Posted by reeferman

I miss 8 track tapes.
LOL

Seriously? And did you get that quote from Married With Children?

I would miss them if I was old enough to remember seeing them in stores. If only they could still be had that easily.

[reeferman]

[QUOTE=zeno;3111746]In our shop it was the smell of smoke.

The same at Columbia Appliance in the early 70's. One of the guys would smoke a deck of Luckies during working hours. Non filtered, of course.
After hours when the hard stuff came out is when he did some serious smoking.

[DavGoodlin]

Originally Posted by oldtvsandtoy

what does any of this have to do with color tv?

It would be nice to get a picture of a bunch of 21" color sets in a showroom on this thread.

Color TV - like automatic transmission and free long distance, is taken for granted anymore.

What I miss is that experience of looking at all the CRT sets in one place, many places had them on but the three places I worked that sold them did not do that like the department stores.

Again, i miss THAT SMELL To quote one of my favorite bands from the 70s'

"oo-oh that smell, caint cha smell that smell,oo-oh that smell, the smell that surrounds tubes"

[etype2]

[/IMG]

Originally Posted by DavGoodlin

It would be nice to get a picture of a bunch of 21" color sets in a showroom on this thread.

Color TV - like automatic transmission and free long distance, is taken for granted anymore.

What I miss is that experience of looking at all the CRT sets in one place, many places had them on but the three places I worked that sold them did not do that like the department stores.

Again, i miss THAT SMELL To quote one of my favorite bands from the 70s'

"oo-oh that smell, caint cha smell that smell,oo-oh that smell, the smell that surrounds tubes"

Can't produce a photo, but saved this:

The ad is from a department store in downtown Milwaukee. There one could see all the brands together, such as RCA, Zenith, Magnavox, Sylanvia, Philco, etc; etc;. It was an exciting time. I researched color sets starting in 1965, driving all over town from store to store to trying to view every possible set, but the best way was in the department stores where one could see many brands side by side for comparison. Ended up buying an RCA 19 inch CTC 19 consolette in 1966 brand new. Very exciting because it was my first color set and the new programming season went 100% color in prime time.

I remember the new set smell. Very distinctive, fresh, new smell. I think it was from the rubber wire insulation. It was also in the new high end audio equipment I purchased.

Most recently, when I found my first Sony KVX 370 Indextron several years ago, it had that same "new smell". I thought "this is going to be special" and it was. :-)

Found this: [IMG][/IMG] Courtesy: Stock Photo

[IMG][/IMG] Courtesy Glenn Edward Waters

[IMG][/IMG]

These last three photos do not represent the look and feel of my shopping experience.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by etype2

[/IMG]


Can't produce a photo, but saved this:

The ad is from a department store in downtown Milwaukee. There one could see all the brands together, such as RCA, Zenith, Magnavox, Sylanvia, Philco, etc; etc;. It was an exciting time. I researched color sets starting in 1965, driving all over town from store to store to trying to view every possible set, but the best way was in the department stores where one could see many brands side by side for comparison. Ended up buying an RCA 19 inch CTC 19 consolette in 1966 brand new. Very exciting because it was my first color set and the new programming season went 100% color in prime time.

I remember the new set smell. Very distinctive, fresh, new smell. I think it was from the rubber wire insulation. It was also in the new high end audio equipment I purchased.

Most recently, when I found my first Sony KVX 370 Indextron several years ago, it had that same "new smell". I thought "this is going to be special" and it was. :-)

Found this: [IMG][/IMG] Courtesy: Stock Photo

[IMG][/IMG] Courtesy Glenn Edward Waters

[IMG][/IMG]

These last three photos do not represent the look and feel of my shopping experience.

That was one of the stores, I was referring to. The downtown Boston Store.
They had the second largest TV and radio department, Schusters, being the largest!
Boston Store's private label was AMC for TV's, radios and appliances. A lot of their electronic products were sourced by Wells Gardner and a few others.
They became a so-called Magnavox "Salon" in the late 60's or so. After that, the only make they sold was Magnavox.

[oldtvman]

Originally Posted by oldtvsandtoy

what does any of this have to do with color tv?

Well if your old enough buying a color tv back in the day was a really big deal and the smell from the new sets enhanced the buying experience much like the new car smell does for buying cars and trucks. People had to lay out a lot of cash back in the day and the whole process was a lot more exciting than buying anything today in electronics.