Blessed by the God of collecting

[Olorin67]

Seems Like with TV sets in particular, a lot of people want to track down the exact set their family had when they were a kid. in many cases, the set people are looking for isn't particularly "collectible" otherwise..
Fortunately, in my case, I grabbed it when It was replaced in the 80's, and still have it. (19" metal cabinet color tube Zenith from 1970-I think I've finally learned enough about TVs to tackle fixing it, but want to get some b&W sets of mine fixed first)

[ohohyodafarted]

Well Tom, According to the ETF web site, it looks like there are a total of 8 known examples of the Admiral C322 color set. I would say that makes it fairly rare to find one. 2 of the 8 sets are in my collection, Blonde and Mahogany.

Hopefully after I pass away you will have enough money to buy one of mine from my widow when she liquidates my collection. To the best of my knowledge, it has been about 9 years since the 7th one was unearthed, and I purchased that one for $1K from the fellow who discovered it.

According to a couple of very serious collectors, I have been told that the Automatic Radio 7" set is the real gem. So I guess it comes down to how rare a set is. I didn't think much of it when I saved it, so I guess I don't know much about collect-ability.

I am busting at the seams with sets that I have no room for. I need to move some B&W sets to other collectors to make room for the sets I want to keep. All sets are roundies of course. So if you or someone else in the area are interested in adding a roundie or two to your collection, let me know. I usually place the value at 150% of what the crt would sell for but of course that's negotiable.

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by ohohyodafarted

I am busting at the seams with sets that I have no room for. I need to move some B&W sets to other collectors to make room for the sets I want to keep. All sets are roundies of course. So if you or someone else in the area are interested in adding a roundie or two to your collection, let me know. I usually place the value at 150% of what the crt would sell for but of course that's negotiable.

Depending on how things go I may be moving in the next few months to year. Until I know exactly where I'm going to be living for the next few years I don't intend to permanently acquire any more consoles (if one comes in it can't stay long or another must go). If any of the sets you want to sell are table sets I might be interested.

[ohohyodafarted]

Thanks for the link Daryl.

I decided to work on the Porta-Color this afternoon. These little GE sets were very reliable, and I was surprised that it did not work when I first plugged it in. I powered it up on the variac, but I did not get any filaments to light. Testing the input voltage confirmed that I did have power to the set. Darn series filaments. Pulled each tube starting at the left rear (left being opposite the tuner) and worked my way toward the tuner. Of course the last tube tested, (4LJ8) in the tuner had an open filament. Murphy's Law! I searched through the tube inventory and found a good used replacement and popped it in. The tubes lit up and I got a raster. I let it sit for about 30 minutes to stablize and then did a few adjustment and was rewarded with a very nice picture. I dont know why the photo has so much grainyness. Screen looks much better in person.

[Steve D.]

Originally Posted by ohohyodafarted

Thanks for the link Daryl.

I decided to work on the Porta-Color this afternoon. These little GE sets were very reliable, and I was surprised that it did not work when I first plugged it in. I powered it up on the variac, but I did not get any filaments to light. Testing the input voltage confirmed that I did have power to the set. Darn series filaments. Pulled each tube starting at the left rear (left being opposite the tuner) and worked my way toward the tuner. Of course the last tube tested, (4LJ8) in the tuner had an open filament. Murphy's Law! I searched through the tube inventory and found a good used replacement and popped it in. The tubes lit up and I got a raster. I let it sit for about 30 minutes to stablize and then did a few adjustment and was rewarded with a very nice picture. I dont know why the photo has so much grainyness. Screen looks much better in person.

Bob,

I'm sure you're aware that the early GE Portacolor sets used the same size dot pitch as their large screen color sets. This produced a somewhat grainy picture on the small screen, lacking the sharpness you might expect. I recall buying, from the GE distributor, a GE Portacolor set the first day they went on sale. I noticed right away the lack of some detail in the image.



-Steve D.

[ohohyodafarted]

I figured it was something like that. I also think I zoomed in to close with the camera. If I had taken a more wide angle shot and then cropped the photo it there would be less detail and it would probably have looked better.