Which color set came first?

[Steve D.]

Thanks John Folsom for including my posts on Admiral's intro of color tv. And David Roper's mention of the Admiral tie in ad with Littlefuse. I did extensive library research that included back issue newspapers from both coasts. Other than the Admiral Corp. article cited by Folsom. And the tie in ad cited by Roper, I could not find one ad in any of the newspapers I searched that offered that Admiral color set for sale or available to the public. I did find one Jan.'54 ad for a Philco color set demonstration at the Wanamaker Dept. Store in NYC, but conclude that was a prototype set that shows an artist's rendering of a TV set. Taking Pete Deksnis' argument that RCA produced several thousand CT-100's starting in March, 1954 and were available to distributors & dealers by late April,'54 does not trump the fact that the public could could go into a Westinghouse dealer and purchase a color tv in Feb. 1954. There are dept. store. newspaper ads that feature the Westinghouse color set for sale from that date. The very set that is currently the subject of a VK thread. I would have to conclude, IMO, that fact alone makes Westinghouse the 1st color TV available for sale to the public. In fairness, stats show that in the 1st 30 days, only one Westinghouse color set was sold.

-Steve D.