Estate Sale Finds In 2008!

[Chad Hauris]

This weekend there was an estate sale with several somewhat unusual TV's.
This was held in a vacant storefront which the estate sale people rented. This must have been a very well to do family which was on the cutting edge of technology at one time.

There was a 1970's Sony LV-1901 console TV with built in Betamax unit which they wanted $295 for (would have been half of that today but still more than I really would want to pay, so I ended up not getting it)
It has a Beta-1 speed only beta recorder in it, and I hooked it up to see how it worked. Someone actually had left an old Beta "Adult" movie in there but it was beta-2 speed so I actually saw it at twice speed! It actally did work but I stopped it after a little while of seeing what it was...

There was a Zenith projection TV which has a motorized screen to rise it up out of the cabinet. It ended up having difficult coming up straight out of the cabinet and did not seem to really produce a picture. Not sure why they wanted $495 for it.

I did get a Sony 3-CRT projection unit for $75.00, a KP-5020. It seems to work well although they did not have the special Sony screen available so I think I will need to fool with the projection screen angle to get the convergence completely right.

Also there was a Panasonic 3.5"? B/w portable with built in cassette player, AM/FM and weather radio which I got for $15.00.
And got a Hitachi 5" color portable with channel indicator bar on-screen for $5.00

There was also a Frigidaire space-age 1950's electric range with oven doors which lift up at eye level plus a pull out drawer for the stove burners. They wanted $575 for it, and would have been half today but I really had no good place to put it plus I still thought it was fairly expensive.

[drh4683]

This is a rather unusual find. Found it yesterday at 404 Orion St, here in Batavia. Its probably the cheapest tube type TV ever made. Its a 16" 1973 General Electric model SF3206WD. Its a 4 tube chassis. Very small board. Probably the lightest TV in existance of its size. Only 2 IF stages and both amplified by one compactron tube. Still has a tube type sarkies tarzan VHF tuner. Even has instant on. and the CRT is even good! Must have never been plugged in. Set works pretty good too. Being such a cheap economy set, the picture is bright and clear but pretty soft. Looks like I was the first to take the back off. Its these cheap sets that never survive. I dont think Ive ever run across a GE portable b/w of this type before. Anyone know what a set like this would have sold for new? Still a USA made set with usa parts.

[Whirled One]

Originally Posted by drh4683

This is a rather unusual find. Found it yesterday at 404 Orion St, here in Batavia. Its probably the cheapest tube type TV ever made. Its a 16" 1973 General Electric model SF3206WD.

Yep, that's an SF chassis alright; looks remarkably like the one in the far-more-common 12" SF sets. That chassis looks *tiny* compared with that 16" CRT though!
I guess I've never seen a 16" version of that.

The SF sets seem to be pretty bulletproof, but as you'd probably expect, they were el-cheapo "value leader" TV's and not great performers.

Still kinda neat though!