Mystery Television

[Cory]

Guys,

I ran across this in the book Mid-Century Modern, it appears to be a television though I've never seen anything like it. Any ideas??

[polaraman]

Looks like a custom cabinet job to me. If the doors were open I bet we could tell. I have a 50's modern/Danish Modern living room and I use a 1954 RCA. It blends in real nice.

polaraman

[Eric H]

Dunno, but I have that same clock! The clock is from about 1937.

[Dave A]

I am sure it is a Natalie Kalmus private brand set from 1950 or so. Came out of California. Guts by Hoffman if I remember.

I have the sales brochure at home and will try to scan it late tonight and post it.

Dave A

Originally posted by Eric H
Dunno, but I have that same clock! The clock is from about 1937.

WHOA! Is that a digital clock from the 30s? I never thought those were even out yet.

[Celt]

"Digital" clocks go back as far as the early '20s. Seth Thomas made one model movement for decades that simply worked like an odometer on your car. As the second block rounded to 60, it would in turn advance the minute blocks and the minute blocks would in advance the hour blocks. The blocks were usually white or brown phenolic. General Electric/Telechron also had an early mechanical/digital system that used white numbers printed on black leafs. Same scenario as above. The Telechron movements almost always had a neon light for illumination and rather than displaying seconds, they had a bizzare striped wheel that spun on the far right hand side. These usually had a timer or alarm function on them as well. These were commonly used in clock radios by many different brands.

Originally posted by CELT
"Digital" clocks go back as far as the early '20s. Seth Thomas made one model movement for decades that simply worked like an odometer on your car. As the second block rounded to 60, it would in turn advance the minute blocks and the minute blocks would in advance the hour blocks. The blocks were usually white or brown phenolic. General Electric/Telechron also had an early mechanical/digital system that used white numbers printed on black leafs. Same scenario as above. The Telechron movements almost always had a neon light for illumination and rather than displaying seconds, they had a bizzare striped wheel that spun on the far right hand side. These usually had a timer or alarm function on them as well. These were commonly used in clock radios by many different brands.

I used to have a GE digital from the 70s that had the slow rotating numbers. I remember it made kind of a hissing sound when it turned the numbers. Red neon illumination as well.

My grandma still has the one you're talking about. The numbers were on black flaps and every minute it would "snap" as it flipped to the next one.

I also remember the electronic neon (not LED) clocks that had a motor and this thing in the display that looked like an asterisk * that changed size continuously. Not sure what those were called but I want one.

[maxm]

I'm sure that a bunch of us out there (including me) have those "rotating number" clocks that look like little TV sets and have a little light inside.
I have seen two styles of those, and older looking saqure one (what I have) and a newer one with a more late 50s/early 60s curved design, and a bigger screen to fit in with the new technology
They must have made a ton of those, I always see them on eBay and in Antique stores, though they don't always still work.

I recall seeing a LOT of clock radios from the 60's and 70's that used those flip number mechanisms. Of course the Telechron clocks predate these and were often found on TV sets and in Ham radio shacks (of course these were considered pretty high tech in thee day although I doubt they were any more accurate than a typical clock).

I believe the neon tube clock that someone mentioned to be equipped with Nixie tubes. These were alpha-numeric displays which means that they could actually show both numbers and letters (and some symbols too). There are tons of really cool sites all about these tubes as well as digital clocks in general. Do a Google.

Anthony

[Sandy G]

Natalie Kalmus? Wasn't she the ramrod behind technicolor? IIRC, for all intents & purposes, she WAS technicolor. Didn't know shw tried to corner the TV market, too, but from what I've read of her, it don't surprise me. She was a rather ruthless business womam, & I think that's being kind. -Sandy G.

[Dave A]

Sandy, you are partially correct. She was the wife of Technicolor inventor Herb Kalmus...and then ex-wife. Part of the divorce settlement was that she would be in the credits of many Technicolor productions as "Technicolor Color Consultant". You can read more in the 50th anniversary book on the "Wizard of Oz", including the disdain she was held in.

It seems that this eventually ran out in the early 50's and my supposition is she sold her name to these sets. I do not know if it was her company or something Hoffman dreamed up. I have a 1952 receipt for my set for a staggering $699.95.

She was positioned as a doyenne of modern design. To quote from the brochure, "To place such an eye-pleasing picture in a cabinet of plain design and ordinary construction would be comparable to framing the Mona Lisa in a melon crate."

The brochure continues on ad nauseum.

There were 4 models. The one you see is the "Student Prince" along with the "New Moon", "Vagabond King" (both straight-sided variations of the picture) and "Combination" which had an AM/FM/Phono, again in a straight-sided cabinet. Three names were borrowed directly from Technicolor productions.

The "Combination" is the one that I own, complete with ceramic planter box insert. It also has a tag on the back advising not to use real flowers, only plastic. Perhaps pouring water in the planter on top of a live chassis was a problem.

The set that started this does not have the planters in place on the shoulders, but you can see them in the photo from the brochure below.

Mine is also horribly top-heavy to the point of being dangerous as the very heavy chassis portion of the cabinet is larger than the speaker base portion.

I recall seeing a variant of the "slapping number" clock on numerous occasions. The difference being that the clock was ordinarily a standard electric clock but below it an advertising page for a local business would be displayed and at regular intervals that page would be covered/displaced by another advertiser's page.

I have watched people in a coffee shop staring intently at the display and arguing/guessing which page would display next or betting on when a given ad would reappear because in some cases the merchant might have been persuaded to buy more than one leaf and therefore his page would appear two or more times in a cycle.

I never engaged in such foolishness myself because I knew that there were 17 pages and that they were only changed every 6 months and no more han 3 pages were ever sold to any single merchant and....errrrum I only once ever bought a page