Early '50's GE 17T4 17" B&W TV

[Jeffhs]

I hope you can get this TV working. My grandmother had a set just like this one in 1951. Hers lasted 20 years, until she got a color set, then she gave me the GE and I used it another couple of years until my dad and I moved in 1972. The only thing wrong with the GE set (it wasn't working when I got it) was an open resistor in the power supply. That set had a very good picture for its age, operating on the attic TV antenna in our house at the time. It was the first TV I ever saw in my life with two RF amplifier tubes in the tuner (a predecessor to single-tube cascode RF amp stages which appeared in the latter part of the '50s into the sixties, for use in fringe areas; remember, most TV reception areas outside major cities were fringe areas in those days, requiring large antennas as well, due to the lower power of early TV transmitters -- not like the 1-megawatt ERP UHF-TV giants back in the NTSC analog era).

My grandmother's GE TV did not have the same problems, however, with the cabinet falling apart like yours did; it made the trip from her apartment in Cleveland to my home at the time in the suburbs (about 15 miles) in one piece. Perhaps your set's cabinet just had weak joints, old glue, who knows? However, I don't think all GE TVs in this style cabinet had the same problem. Was your set in hot environments at any time before you got it? That's the only thing I can think of, besides the glue simply giving up and turning into sticky, gooey mush after 60 years, that could have caused it to actually run down the sides of the cabinet.