Reactions to old TVs

[julianburke]

Tee hee hee! All of you youngsters (I'll be 56 next month) many times act as if you have just "discovered" old color TV's!! I was repairing them while in high school in the late 60's and I mean fixing them for real and when I was 17 got a job at a stereo & TV store as a TV tech. I have collected color TV's for over 40 years now and have about 30 of the roundies. (three mint CT-100's) I have countless other sets as well. (about 100 total) I also have all of my tubes and then some from a 40 year collection. (about 10,000!) I still have lots of NOS Zenith and RCA parts to keep my sets going. Now they're back in vogue and glad I saved them! Just wait until someone discovers I have NOS color CRT's!!

One story I like to relate is when I was at a Atlanta hamfest some years ago, a gentleman pulled in a trailer full of junk-and I mean JUNK. (nothing stuff from a wet basement) One thing he did have was a Korean era field telephone set (bad condition-I ended up buying it for $1) and two young boys about 15 looking were at it and one said "oh, that's a military radio. Those are valuable"! I happened to say no, that's an old Army field phone. One boy asked "what's that?" I said that you would have two or more connected with a pair of wires.

They looked at each other in amazement and one said "WIRES? ARE YOU SURE??" Our young generation just don't even have a clue of what wire is used for anymore.

When I give talks, I like to relate this story. Last year at the television museum in Columbus I related this story again and the audience roared. Some guy later on was giving a talk on his Russian RCA mirror in the lid set and when trying to get it to work mentioned he needed to hook up a antenna wire to the set. Someone in the audience yelled out, "WIRES? Are you sure?" That was funny! Julian

[compucat]

I guess I have been fortunate thus far. I have had all positive reactions to my radio and TV collection. Poeple love to see the old sets and always ask "Does it work?". No one oustide the readers of this forum have seen my Zenith roundie yet but I bet it will draw a comment or two.

There was one time when I was at work negotiating with a coworker on the price of a Hallicrafters S53-A Shortwave "boatanchor" tube radio. The set was in fair condition but very restorable. Someone walked buy and said that piece of junk should be put in the garbage where it belongs. I tried to educate him on the value and functionality of vintage radios but it was a wasted effort. I bought the set for forty dollars, and eventually restored it. It has worked well for years and has become one of my best and favorite radios. Some people think that just because something is old, it must be of little value, functional or otherwise.

[Arkay]

Originally Posted by julianburke

Just wait until someone discovers I have NOS color CRT's!!

There can't be too many of those tucked away forgotten on shelves... can there be? Sounds like you have a fairly amazing, world-class collection there.

[wa2ise]

A few years ago a friend from India paid a visit. He saw my RCA B&W console (1957 vintage) and talked a bit about TVs. I turned it on, and he was amazed a little bit that it actually worked (albeit the CRT needs a brightner). I recapped it. We used to work together doing early HDTV R&D about 15 years ago.

He said something about similar TVs in India when he grew up there (he's roughly my age, so that would place it in the 60's to early 70's). Calcutta area, near Bengla Desh.

Emailed another friend (who is a hard core NY Yankees fan) a picture of the above TV set with a baseball game on the CRT. He was amused to see a modern baseball game (must be that games in the day used different camera angles, as well as no electronic graphics showing base runners, scores, the count and so on) on a vintage TV set.