How do you find sets in your area?

[andy]

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[radiotvnut]

I rarely find any old TV's in my immediate area. Sometimes, I'll place a "free pick-up of non working TV's" in the local paper and that usually generates a bunch of calls; but, I usually end up getting 20 BPC sets before something old comes my way. Garage/Estate sales and generally a bust and "old TV" to them is the 2002 silver durabrand that was just replaced by a flatscreen. I guess the most recent local vintage TV score for me was over a year ago when I found a Philco Safari in a flea market. Everything else mostly came from out of town. About a year or so ago, I placed an ad in the local paper that read, "WANTED: Od TV's, working or not, with knob style tuners that were made between the 1940's and early 1970's". You wouldn't believe the number of calls I received from people wanting to sell me their 3 year old Symphonic's and their '90's era Zenith consoles with weak CRT's. Believe me, it was real hard to keep from saying, "The ad says '40's-'70's, which means that I don't want your junk from the last ten years". The only set that I got as a result of that ad was a beat up late '70's 19" Zenith B&W.

Back in the '90's, I was finding tube and early SS TV's on a regular basis. Most of the tube sets consisted of '50's B&W consoles, '60's and '70's rectangular color console and portable sets, and portable B&W sets from the '60's and '70's. I remember bringing home 2 or 3 color roundie sets and one RCA 10" round screen B&W. Unfortunately, back then, I wasn't interested in saving old TV's. TV's were something for me to fix and sell so I could finance my antique radio collecting. And, at that point in time, I could sell just about any working TV that I got my hands on.

I think the reason old TV's were more common in the '90's is because there were still lots of people around who were old enough to own such a set. Now, many of those folks are no longer with us and their belongings have already been disposed of. Also, the early-to-mid '90's was a time when the last "daily driver" tube type TV's were taken out of service in favor of newer TV's.

I predict that in 10-15 years, it will be hard to find a '90's era TV, let alone anything from the '70's or before. Another thing to consider is that we live in a disposable society. Most of the people that I used to get old TV's from lived through the depression and they know how hard it is to buy something. When the old TV died, it went to the basement. When a cousin on my Dad's side passed away, they gave me 3 old TV's that were in her basement - An early '50's 21" Westinghouse B&W, an early '60's 17" RCA portable, and a mid '60's Motorola 23" color TV in a metal cabinet. I figure that when one TV went out, it went to the basement and was replaced by a newer set. Today, most people are certainly not going to save anything when it dies. In fact, their TV may not even have to die before they trash it. Just let something new come along and they'll go max out the credit card just so they can say "look what we have".

[JCFitz]

Originally Posted by radiotvnut

Back in the '90's, I was finding tube and early SS TV's on a regular basis. Most of the tube sets consisted of '50's B&W consoles, '60's and '70's rectangular color console and portable sets, and portable B&W sets from the '60's and '70's. I remember bringing home 2 or 3 color roundie sets and one RCA 10" round screen B&W. Unfortunately, back then, I wasn't interested in saving old TV's. TV's were something for me to fix and sell so I could finance my antique radio collecting. And, at that point in time, I could sell just about any working TV that I got my hands on.

Same here only I was buying records and jukeboxes with the money.Those sets started taking up valuable storage space when nobody wanted them anymore. All they wanted was silver or black remote tvs. Then the bottom fell out on that when the prices got really low on those and flat screens were all the rage so I got out of the flea market business,gave all my tube type and hybrid portables to a fellow collector and gave away what I could of the working ss ones. The non-working ss sets went to the landfill along with about 70 non-working vcrs.

I've decided that moneywise and spacewise I'm full up on jukeboxes (The market is dying on those now except for highly desireable ones. Go figure.No more side money and jukes are getting cheaper.They were at their peak when I was buying.) and want to get back into a nice vintage tv but they're not out there anymore.

[radiotvnut]

Yeah, and the flatscreens are constantly coming down in price. Soon, they'll be so cheap that no one will give you anything for a used one. Of course, that's assuming that you can find a used one that's actually worth repairing. I've heard many people talk about how common it is for caps to go bad; but, I haven't gotten lucky enough to find one of those. All the ones I find have expensive problems that I don't want to fix. At this moment, I have a 37" Sanyo LCD that my original intent was to fix and sell it. After spending $32 to replace one of the inverter transformers, it still had the same problem. Now, I could spend $50 on a new inverter board; but, I'm afraid it still wouldn't be fixed and I'd have over $80 in a POS that I couldn't do anything with. Even if I get it going, there's the chance that it will crap out in a day, week, or a month; and, the buyer will be jumping down my throat about it. As far as used TV sales, I need to just say that it was fun while it lasted and move on to something else. The only used TV I have for sale at the moment is an '84 19" Curtis-Mathes knob tuned color set. I finally let my flea market friend take it and I think he has $30 on it. He said a lot of people have looked at it; but, claimed they didn't have any money. I'll bet if it was an HD set for $30, they'd come up with some money in short order. Another woman expected a DTV converter to be thrown in and he told her that for the price he had on the TV, she could buy her own converter box. Another person was in shock that he wanted so much for such an old set and he told them that it was a working color TV and that they needed to go buy a new TV if that one wasn't worth $30 to them. After he told me all this, I told him not to come off the price and that if it didn't sell, I'd keep it for a spare TV. Unlike most people today, I don't have to have HD and I don't feel the need to "keep up with the Jones's". And, I don't care how old it is. If a working 19" color TV isn't worth $30; then, it's not worth my time to even fool with it. And, since most people have some sort of set top box (cable, satellite, or DTV), that old knob tuned TV will receive just as many channels as a new set. It's just that people want the "latest and greatest" and they want it for nothing.

[marty59]

Being in Texas, I agree with Andy. About the only place for anything vintage is the local CL. Sometimes it suprises me what shows up. Some of you have seen my posts with attached ads/links.

Lately, it's been pretty dry for TV's...

[marty59]

Actually, here's a couple but not anything really special...

http://dallas.craigslist.org/dal/atq/1968024741.html
Mid sixties RCA B&W.

http://dallas.craigslist.org/ftw/atq/1948775361.html
Early fifties something with missing knobs.

[Eric H]

Originally Posted by marty59

Actually, here's a couple but not anything really special...

http://dallas.craigslist.org/dal/atq/1968024741.html
Mid sixties RCA B&W.

http://dallas.craigslist.org/ftw/atq/1948775361.html
Early fifties something with missing knobs.

The second one is a Philco I'm pretty sure, though my definition of "Good condition" and theirs differ somewhat.

[Zenith26kc20]

Agree with Audubon, Katrina finished off the area known as Lakeview where alot of the older sets were. I've been given a few and found one at a flea market (my T-933 Maggie).
My roundie came from Mark and Craters and Freighters brought it here untouched.
The most of one kind are the VT-71 Motorolas. I have seven of them. I got them when the Motorola distributor closed up and sold them to me.

[AUdubon5425]

Originally Posted by Zenith26kc20

Agree with Audubon, Katrina finished off the area known as Lakeview where alot of the older sets were. I've been given a few and found one at a flea market (my T-933 Maggie).
My roundie came from Mark and Craters and Freighters brought it here untouched.
The most of one kind are the VT-71 Motorolas. I have seven of them. I got them when the Motorola distributor closed up and sold them to me.

When I'm able, I look for estate sales in Uptown, certain older parts of Metairie, River Ridge and the Aurora Gardens section of Algiers. Basically middle to upper-middle class sections that didn't flood. I've only scored one set from an estate sale though, the '72 hybrid Chromacolor. And it had an Evansville, Ind. address carved on the back - I guess that's where it originated.

[Findm-Keepm]

I got my CTC-16 roundie from a TV shop closing - the same closing yielded a 12" Sony with no back (it survived a fire!), a Setchell Carlson 21" institutional BW set, and a 60's 19" Dumont B/W luggable. I got my CTC-40 by chance - a guy needed it fixed but didn't want to spend the money.

I got my (working!) portacolor from a trash pick - there's a post I made in the old A-K days about that find. I even picked up a spare set of knobs from a local company with old GE/RCA/Zenith parts.

Most of my curb finds in the last two years were 25-36" BPC sets, usually set out with the box from a recent HDTV purchase. I was grabbing the HDTV boxes for a dealer (seems some manufacturers want LCD/Plasma warranty sets returned in original packaging) and the BPC sets for scrapping.

Public Surplus.com has tons of BPC stuff, and the occasional oddity, like my CRT HDTV Panasonic set, and my ton of test equipment - some from the 60's.

The local thrifts now pooh-pooh CRT sets, so no luck there. I usually go in to try and find other goodies - like tube based organs, the occasional Heathkit or other odd test equipment, and my two best finds: a MIB Altec amp I bought for $4.98 and sold on the bay for $451, and a Sansui AU-11000 bought for 14.98 and sold for $416.

Strategies I'd suggest:
1. Visit and talk to TV repair shops. What they throw away, we sometimes want. Be willing to take everything, so you don't miss out. Leave them a card with a cell number you can be reached at. I've picked up sets in a blizzard, just to show I'm the one to call first.
2. Scour the thrifts - some charity thrifts cull their stuff and trash it immediately - that's the stuff we typically want.
3. CL and newspaper classifieds - sure, you have a lot of chaff, but occasionally the CT-100 pops up!
4. Even at my church, I let it be known I'm into the older stuff. The average age of our members is 63 years old, so they are the ones with the classic TVs. VFW's, KofC and other organizations with elderly folks might also be the honeyhole you are looking for.
5. Keep trash-picking! You never know...

Cheers,

[bgadow]

I hardly ever buy radios or TV sets anymore...they come to me. Through the years I have casually mentioned my hobby to many different folks; now, several times each year, I'll get a call or a visit from somebody asking if I want an old set. In the last year I have ended up with: a Motorola VT-71, a Pace SSB base station CB with Astatic mic, a decent Craig 8 track player/recorder, a Sony "lollipop" crt Watchman, a Philco 38-7 console, a small Crosley tombstone, a box of radio tubes, an early 60s Philco console stereo, a gutted CTC-17 combo, an early 80s Zenith videocamera (pre-camcorder), 1 or 2 radios from the 70s, a BPC or two. Right now I need to make time to pick up a GE 25" table model from the early 80s, which might have the "blue" crt. Granted, some of these things I didn't want at all, and many I got rid of...but, people remembered me...and none of the above cost me a dime.

[Findm-Keepm]

Originally Posted by bgadow

I hardly ever buy radios or TV sets anymore....

Ditto, with the exception of my CTC-16 roundie ($12, as it came with several new degaussing thermistors, taped to the CRT face!) and my Panasonic HDTV ($25, opening and closing bid on Public Surplus).

My wife also drops hints to her friends and occasionally one comes up that way - the latest was a working 1959 Zenith Radio. Mostly it's BPC stuff, but I'll take even that. I'm still waiting for an Atwater Kent or early Radiola to show up.

Even test equipment can be had for free. I've been the recipient of about a dozen 5" tube O-scopes (Eico, RCA, Heath, Sencore, Knight, etc) and a bunch of old military stuff, popular here due to the era when mil surplus sales were being held locally. But mostly, it's TV shops - if it isn't earning them money and is in the way, it gets given away. I got a RCA Isotap that way recently - it's the light duty job, perfect for audio.

Cheers,

[Jeffhs]

I live in a small town (population 3245) in northeastern Ohio. Been here ten and a half years and have only seen two vintage TVs on the curbs to date (one small RCA b&w 12" portable from about 1980 and a 25" RCA Colortrak console from perhaps 1978), although there were two vintage console stereos just up the street from my apartment a year or so ago.

When I lived in Wickliffe, Ohio (east suburban Cleveland), I would see quite a few '50s-'60s vintage TVs and the occasional stereo console or standalone phonograph on the curbs every week or so, but that was then; this is now. I haven't been back there for over a year, so don't know how or if the situation has changed much -- or at all. However, I expected to see more CRT analog TVs on the curbs here after the DTV transition than I actually have seen. Folks here are either recycling their old sets, giving them away to relatives or friends, or, if they still work well, hanging on to them for use with VCRs or DVD players. However, I haven't seen any so-called BPC sets in the trash around here yet, unless they are or were in parts of this area I don't frequent very often. Some of the CRT sets may still be in their owners' homes in the attic or basement, gathering dust, while a new giant-screen flat panel graces the living room/family room/den.

[tvcollector]

I've got some old sets from the 70s and 80s mostly, they tend to pop up at the local thrift shops here and there. We have goodwill and depending on the management of the goodwill store some do not except old style UHF/VHF dial sets. I have seen them from time to time in some goodwills and i remember seeing an old quasar with the dials side by side instead up and down about a year ago and wish i would have bought the set. In the Salvation Armys i still see the old sets from time to time as well. I never see any old tube sets in thrift shops, but many people don't realize that it takes a minute for them to come on, nor most probably don't work right anyways, so i don't think they would even make it out on the shelves. I don't even see 8-tracks in the goodwills much anymore, as i did in the 90s when they were always flooded with them. I also collect Betamax VCRS and within the month i came across two which is surprising, one being at a Salvation Army, and the funny part about it is, I got them home and they work like new.. I noticed Goodwill and Salvation Army being flooded with the new recycled aged junk, I'm stating to feel like I'm in a used wal-mart. I remember we also had Saint Vincent De Pal thrift shops, but all have gone under here. Also check out the local area thrifts that donate to local charities, you may find something interesting in those non so popular thrifts..

How many of you collect 70s and 80s sets?

[AUdubon5425]

There's a few of us here that have some 70's and 80's sets.