The number of playable B&W Televisions ...

[peverett]

Due to the distruction of B&W sets mentioned above, I believe they are holding their own at best. At my house, the number of B&W sets that are working is increasing(although I have setbacks now and then as once they operate awhile something other than a paper or electrolytic cap will fail).

As to the signal change mentioned above, with the cell phone companies wanting to hog all the spectrum they can, the change may be to no advertizer funded over the air TV. Not ethical in my opinion, but politicians continue to be bought. Recently I saw that the cell phone companies are trying to get some of the DOD spectrum-how is that good for national defense?

As to 1970s cars, I have a 1978 Mustang II. As it is only one of four that I know of in the Austin, Texas area, I win prizes regularly at car shows. Ford made over a million of these in five years, most were crushed. However, I do not think it is extremely valuable. I recently saw both a Ford Pinto and American Motors Gremlin at car shows. These are also scarce, but not to valuable! I have not recently seen an American Motors Pacer, otherwise known as a pregnant Pinto, though.

[bgadow]

Yesterday I was reading this page:
http://www.allpar.com/corporate/fact...dsor-1975.html
Really sad to think that most of what they are making in these photos is now long, long gone.

[AUdubon5425]

Originally Posted by bgadow

Yesterday I was reading this page:
http://www.allpar.com/corporate/fact...dsor-1975.html
Really sad to think that most of what they are making in these photos is now long, long gone.

A good friend of mine sold his '75 Cordoba last year. A few months later the buyer came into his shop and told him the car had broken down on the highway and was subsequently stolen off the side of the road! A week later my friend was in the local pull-a-part and guess what's there? That junkyard pays by the pound for cars, and evidently didn't ask for the title.

[cwmoser]

Originally Posted by AUdubon5425

A good friend of mine sold his '75 Cordoba last year. A few months later the buyer came into his shop and told him the car had broken down on the highway and was subsequently stolen off the side of the road! A week later my friend was in the local pull-a-part and guess what's there? That junkyard pays by the pound for cars, and evidently didn't ask for the title.

A friend of mine had a Cordoba when they were popular - remember Ricardo Montalban's "real Corinthian leather". I remember that Cordoba as having flimsy plastic interior pieces - noticeably cheap quality.

Carl

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by AUdubon5425

A good friend of mine sold his '75 Cordoba last year. A few months later the buyer came into his shop and told him the car had broken down on the highway and was subsequently stolen off the side of the road! A week later my friend was in the local pull-a-part and guess what's there? That junkyard pays by the pound for cars, and evidently didn't ask for the title.

They just rounded up a group of car thieves in Milwaukee. They were stealing running, older model cars from the streets in the older section of town. They were doing the same thing.

[Steve]

I think there are far more early B&W TV's in good working condition now
than in many years because of collectros/restorers like us. Sets made
in the 1950's and later are on the decline because
they are not collectable. At least right now. One exception might be
the small pocket TV's. I know I've picked up a few dozen of these just
beacuse they are dirt cheap, small, and you have to admire the
engineering that went into them (IMO).
Steve W6SSP

[Sandy G]

Seventies cars need to be kept & preserved as examples of how NOT to make cars...(grin)

[dieseljeep]

:

Originally Posted by cwmoser

A friend of mine had a Cordoba when they were popular - remember Ricardo Montalban's "real Corinthian leather". I remember that Cordoba as having flimsy plastic interior pieces - noticeably cheap quality.

Carl

Evidently, you didn't look carefully at the GM and Ford offerings, that were built at the same time. The entire interior panels and other fittings in my Toyota are all plastic and I could care less.

[Reece]

Had a '75 Lincoln Continental with leather seats but the plastic door liners were junk. They cracked and rattled and fell apart. This was in the late '70's early '80's. Lower part of the fenders rotted out from the junk metal. I got good at bodywork and sticking door parts back together.

[radiotvnut]

Since the DTV transition, I've gotten lots of 5"/9"/12" B&W sets from the late '60's on up.

In my area, channels 24 and 30 turned off their analog signal before channel 11. About a week before channel 11 was to switch, an older lady called to say that she could no longer receive channels 24 and 30 on her kitchen TV and she insisted that I look at her TV. When I arrived, I found an early '80's RCA 12" B&W set and I explained to her that nothing was wrong with her TV. I went on to explain that channel 11 would be going digital in one week and she would then lose all reception on that TV, unless she connected it to a DTV converter box. Despite all the long running PSA's concerning DTV, this lady had no clue what it meant. I explained how she could get a DTV converter for little cost; but, she was not interested. She said she couldn't justify spending any money to make an old B&W TV watchable and she told me to take the set home with me when I left. Had I not taken that set, it would have likely gone in the trash can. Outside of a few collectors, no one wants these types of B&W sets and people don't think twice about tossing them.

I have a friend, who re-sells things, and he's always going to yard sales. To make it simple, I told him to pick up any TV with a knob tuner if it was priced reasonable. So far, he's gotten me several 12" B&W sets and a few '70's/'80's color TV.

In a few years, these later B&W sets will probably be very hard to find. It's like back in the early '90's, I had no problem finding color roundies, older B&W consoles, or any other TV from the tube era. The early '90's was an era when the last round of tube TV's were being retired for solid state sets and people were real quick to throw them out or give them to people who wanted them. Back then, I had no desire to collect TV's. My main interest was to fix and resell TV's in order to buy antique radios.

Fast forward a few years and the tube sets became harder to find; but, solid state sets from the '70's and '80's started turning up more. Again, people were replacing these sets with newer TV's.

Now, it's somewhat rare around here to see a TV older than the mid '90's.

There is still stuff to be discovered; but, the bulk of the older stuff has already been discarded or given away.

In 50 years, there will probably be collectors getting excited because they found a 19" Sanyo LCD TV on the side of the road. If most of us found such a set today, we'd probably leave it at the side of the road.

[tvcollector]

It seems like you can get re-manufactured parts for classic cars and keep them running for ever.. But no one is rebuilding or making replicas of picture tubes, so if this continues we will eventually have sets only making sound.. I would think in the near future that someone would start manufacturing flybacks and crts to keep these sets alive.. It seems there is a little market for that since there are alot of collectors out there and more that are to start..

In thrift shops I see mostly TV sets from the 90s and 2000s.. Rarely anything 80s, and never anything tube.. Back in 1990s I use to see tube sets and 80s sets in the Goodwill and Salvation Army stores all the time.. I use to see 8 Track tapes and now I rarely see those.. Many of these thrift shops won't put out anything that even looks old.. These old clickers that ends up in there donation ben will end up in the dumpster working or not.. These thrift shops are very picky to what they put out on the floor for stuff they get for nothing..

[W3XWT]

Originally Posted by Sandy G

Seventies cars need to be kept & preserved as examples of how NOT to make cars...(grin)

I would love to find a decent 1973 Ford Galaxie 500 4-door sedan! Pluses would be a 351C 4bbl, dual exhausts, light green paint with green vinyl upholstery. Not only did it bring home my 1975 RCA 19" B&W set I bought with cash at Luskins (and still works with a DTV box on it), but I have a very sentimental reason for wanting one.

Yes, I know about Thomas Wolfe.

And, the Pinto was a very bad car. Including my '74 wagon. (2.3L engine, Auto box, AM radio, and A/C. Turning on the A/C saved a lot of brake wear.) I think many of them were recycled into cans for "Scotch Buy" beer.

[dieseljeep]

And, the Pinto was a very bad car. Including my '74 wagon. (2.3L engine, Auto box, AM radio, and A/C. Turning on the A/C saved a lot of brake wear.) I think many of them were recycled into cans for "Scotch Buy" beer.[/QUOTE]

My brother bought a lease-return 75 Pinto wagon for his wife. It was the more deluxe model with the walnut grain wallpaper on it. I took it for a ride and when I returned I replied "that baby really moves for a four banger". My brother replied "look under the hood". It had a small V-6 in it.
PS. Was "Scotch Buy" beer the lowest priced beer in your area.

[jstout66]

I love this thread! And it got me thinking.. about how many working B&W sets have gotten tossed because NOBODY would want one. I remember in our Zenith store, the cut-off point for B&W sales was about 1983. My uncle had the Zenith store display for B&W portables, and finally quit ordering any because the ones on the shelf were getting so old. But god.. I remember as a kid.. (circa 1976) when I was given an old Philco Seventeener and thought I was SO COOL because I finally had a set in my room. I've attached some pix of a K-mart B&W set that was given to me by Tim almost 8 years ago. It's a 74 or 75 tube set... still works great. I've kept it all this time because it was interesting to me that K-mart even had a store brand. The pix is snowy because I was trying to get the one UHF analog station we have in the area....

[Sandy G]

I have a little 9" Panasonic B/W Tooob set from the late Sixties/early Seventies time period...Their El-Cheapo B/W line was Tooob for quite awhile. Mine plays fine, just like the l'il trooper it is. Nice "Tubey" smell, too...That's worth a LOT right there !