Best place to search for old wood console TV's ?

[Adam]

Actually, I've found craigslist to be my best source of sets, in the past 5 years or so I've picked up the following sets off of CL: 1947 RCA 721ts, 1948 Motorola TS4J x2, 1949 Hoffman 610, 1950 DuMont RA112, 1950 RCA 6T65, 1956 Zenith 21" b/w, 1958 Philco Predicta, 1960 RCA CTC-10 remote control, 1964 Zenith 25MC33 SC400 chinese cabinet, 1965 RCA CTC-15 combo, 1975 Zenith 19" CCII SC600.

The key to using CL is trying to get the most out of your searches. I first go to the "collectables" section and search for "tv" then search for "television", then for "radio." Those searches will pull up 80-90% of the interesting sets on there. Then go to "electronics" search first for "antique", then for "vintage". Don't bother searching for "tv" in "electronics", you'll just get a bunch of junky late model stuff that takes a long time to look through, if it's an older set they'll use one of those words. Sometimes I just search "antique" and don't even bother with searching "vintage" in "electronics", you'll usually just pull up a bunch of '70s and 80's stuff that way. In CL tv/radio ad speak: vintage = 80s-60s, antique = 60s-20s. Then go to "furniture" and search for brand names, "Zenith", "RCA", "Philco", etc... If you search for just "tv" in "furniture" you'll get a bunch of cabinets for holding TVs instead. It's not that common to find sets in "furniture", so you can skip this one, but I have found a few sets hiding in there in the past. I used to spend an hour or so searching craigslist, with this method it only takes 5 min or so, and it will pull up 99% of what's out there.

There are plenty of sets on ebay, but to me it's just so much more effort to deal with ebay than it is to use craigslist, so I don't bother with it much.

I don't even bother with garage sales anymore (only 2 sets in 9 years - and both were early 80s color), and estate sales are not that great in this area (although from what I read on here they are in others) in the past 9 years I've only picked up 4 sets at estate sales.

Thrift stores can be good if they're the smaller independent stores and look on the junky side, I've found 21 sets this way in the past 9 years. (That looks like a lot but they were mostly 12" b/w sets)

In my experience many tv repair shops will happily give you all the broken 80's and newer sets you want, but if they have any older stuff it's usually way way way overpriced. I actually met one guy who wanted 2k for a 1960 Magnavox b/w combo. Although I did pick up 3 sets from the attic of place that sold electronic parts a few years ago.

And then there's side-of-the-road finds, they're not plentiful, but they're still out there: in the past 9 years I've had 6 good side of the road finds, and well over 20 if you count the less good stuff.