Show us your vintage B&W sets!

[Dan Starnes]

Boy sure do enjoy those pics!!
Dan

[Kiwick]

Some of my Italian-made B/W tube sets

1) 1963 Philips, made by Philips' Italian plant, this set uses a 23" CRT with a contoured bonded lens and a transformerless audio output, with high impedance speakers hooked directly to the output tube's plate circuit.

Seems that European CRTs with bonded lenses don't suffer from PVA deterioration and cataracts like many American CRTs do

2) 1961 CGE, this set uses a 17" 110° CRT and an one-piece bakelite cabinet.

3) 1964 Phonola 23", this set uses the world's first CRT (the Philips A59-11W) with the modern "rimband" type of integral implosion protection, the screen is the actual face of the CRT envelope

i also have an Italian-made Emerson, i'll post a pic of it ASAP

Francesco

[Kiwick]

The 1963 Emerson Forrestal, with wired remote and motorized tuner and volume control

[Patnukem]

Here are some pictures of my Sentinel 424 from 1951!

[wa2ise]

A vintage photo of some test equipment for TV and radio work. And a radio chassis. Photo taken in the early 60's. And that's the family cat, named "Silky". An Eico 'scope (which was little more than a toy compared to the Tektronix scopes I've used in my jobs as an electrical engineer), an Eico TV signal generator(?), Hickok vacuum tube voltmeter(?), and a simple emissions tube tester.

You can also see the entertainment center (upper left of the photo) my father built. And here it is later on with different equipment:

[IsakAlexande]

[Eric H]

Not something I'd normally bother with but it's kind of neat looking, no doubt the word "Deco" would apply on eBay.

I thought it was some kind of kids chair at first but then i noticed the wheels.

It's probably deep enough for a color set but this Zenith fits nicely on it.

[bre's dad]

Though not a collector (yet), I picked up a 1949 Arvin console tv from a friend. It doesn't work, but my father is optimistic he can get it going (old tube tv guy). Its in pretty good shape for 60+ years. I've thought about refinishing the cabinet, but probably won't. Its a 12" round set. Don't know how much the old Arvin sets are worth (don't see many). I paid $5 from a friend for it and he paid less than that. What's neat is I live in the town this was made in. In fact, it was purchased at a flea market in one of the older Arvin factories, I think where they had a TV line... talk about coming full circle.

If I get approval from domestic management (wife that doesn't understand...), I'm trying to aquire a newer Arvin table top model (looks like about a 19" square tube) that I think does work.

[Tubejunke]

Man! Some guys have all the luck!! That Arvin is a REAL nice looking set! Where is MY piece of the pie? What a way to start a collection.....

[bre's dad]

Originally Posted by Tubejunke

Man! Some guys have all the luck!! That Arvin is a REAL nice looking set!

thanks. It's not quite as nicce in person. The console is pretty scratched up & is on the edge of being refinished. however, I would have a very hard time trying to match the finish (I really don't want to disassemble the whole thing and risk screwing it up). It does fit in nicely with the 1950's wooden exec desk & cool flourescent desk lamp (60's?) I have. Sad thing is I used to have a mint Admiral console stereo that would matchc perfect. Had to rehome it when we remodeled the downstairs. I still regret getting rid of it, but it did go to a good home.

[bgadow]

Good catch on the Arvin! I see there radios but the TV's don't show up much. I have a few different Arvin stereos. They're a long way from high-fidelity but there is something about them that I like.

[Chucklbunny]

Here's the beautiful Motorola 17T13 I bought from Tubejunke !! It is one sweet set !

[jshorva65]

This is one I bought on eBay several years ago and have just gotten around to restoring.

Most of the 'lytics showed good ESR, low leakage, and were within tolerance. Those that didn't meet the test criteria got re-stuffed with new units. For replacing the paper/wax caps, I used Mallory "150's" tubular axials, as I've gotten a good performance / price balance with these. Still needs hooked up to the scope/sweep/markers to check the RF/VIF/SIF, and video amp response curves. If it needs alignment at all, it will clearly need only the procedure shown under "touch-up alignment" in the 630TS service manual. The set is now protected by a 5A fast-acting AC line "pigtail" fuse (beside the filter caps), 1A main B+ "pico" fuse (under the front 5U4 socket), and 250mA B+ Boost "pico" fuse (under the 5V4 socket).

Final assembly will be after response-check and (if needed) touch-up alignment, but here's a screenshot, underchassis view, then the cabinet. Note the cardboard shield which protects the "unobtanium" electrodynamic speaker until the chassis is safely inside its cabinet.

[jshorva65]

This one isn't my personal set, but it's a beautiful example of my recent work. It got all its 'lytics checked for ESR/leakage/tolerance, one single-section (cathode bypass) 'lytic flunked and was replaced. Swapped out 45 bumblebee caps, cleaned everything up, and changed some weak tubes. HiFi is in the drawer below the TV.

Thanks to Steve McVoy for the referral. Working on an RCA metal portable for the same client now and will post pics when finished.

[ChrisW6ATV]

Wow, that Curtis Mathes makes the "single wide" color one in another topic seem small!

I love the small CRT you have for the Fada project. And, "unobtanium electrodynamic speaker"... I have a 630TS that had been converted to a video monitor at some time, and a video-level control or something was mounted through the speaker grille cloth. I tried some kind of speaker as part of my repair attempts around 1980 but got no sound. Now I think I know the main reason why. I will have to look at the Photofact manual closely at some point and figure out how to make a PM speaker work in there. I do not remember if the audio-output transformer was even still there.