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#1
11-27-2005, 12:34 AM
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The first customers of color TV
I love reading about the many experiences of all that is relative to TV and the many people around them.
Can anybody tell all they remember about any specific customers they dealt with who purchased early color TV's. Giving allthe details including names and the things most people think are too personal to discuss would help us to get the most from the experience and take us back in time as if we had actually been there! Any photos would add alot too. Thanks, John 
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#2
11-27-2005, 01:13 AM
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Here is a story that my Aunt loved to tell: In appx 1956, the family TV was a Westinghouse B&W 21" that my mother had bought in '54. Just for the record, this was all before my time. I'm old enough as it is without making myself sound older, LOL...
The Westinghouse evidently had a problem that the TV repairman (Mr. Cohn of B.C. Cohn TV in Los Angeles) said he had to take the TV to the shop to fix. So Mr. Cohn offered a loaner to the family at no cost. My Grandma accepted, and that afternoon there came a big (unknown) color TV to the house! The scheme was that Mr. Cohn would allow my family to enjoy the color set for a week, then they were supposed to like it enough to buy it. Well, I guess it was nice but my Grandma was a terrible tinkerer. The family sat down to see a program, and Grandma managed to turn every control on that TV to render it hopelessly awry. So the next day, she called Mr. Cohn and told him the TV was "too much bother", and asked him to come get it. He did, and that was the last of color TV in the Burdick household until 1970 when my mother sneaked to Fedco and bought a Hitachi 12" solid state portable color set for her room. Then the next color TV to enter our home was a Packard-Bell 21CT7 21" roundie that I bought from a guy in the late 70s after I started fooling with TVs. By then, Grandma was no longer with us and the Packard-Bell's many pots remained in good order (God rest Grandma's soul) Charles
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#3
11-27-2005, 11:06 AM
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for the average color viewer, taking the time to adjust a color set properly back then was beyond most peoples skill or patience. I can't tell you how many times going in to service color sets and seeing the gastly pictures they were willing to put up with
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[IMG]
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#4
11-27-2005, 01:52 PM
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What about when you go in and set up a TV so the tint and color was correct and they say it looks bad! and proceeds to turn it back so it looks all green and washed out.
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#5
11-27-2005, 04:03 PM
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I didn't have any customers when color TV first came in, since I was born that year. But I do have two fairly vivid recollections from the early days. Neither story is even remotely worthy of headlines, but since you asked, here they are:
One was that even around 1964, a decade after color came on the market, such sets were still pretty unusual in my neighborhood. Our next door neighbors won a color TV as the grand prize in a church raffle. Man, it was a big event; everybody gathered round the roundie. As far as I remember, my friend was the only kid I knew locally who's family had a color TV back then. I guess winning one was the only way to go, apparently nobody in my middle class neighborhood was going to spend that kind of money out of their pocket! (Gee, I guess I should get back in touch with them and see if they've still got it stashed away in the basement!) The second memory I have from about the same point in time was some family friends who purchased a color set around 1963 or 1964. Even at such a tender age, I clearly remember thinking that looking at bright red (or sometimes green!) faces seemed like an awfully odd way to watch TV! I'm not sure exactly what they were thinking, but I suspect it was along the lines of if you paid that much for a TV you darn well cranked the "color" control ALL the way up to get your money's worth!
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#6
12-06-2005, 11:13 AM
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Thanks for the memories!
Charles, That's a great story! My friend/former boss Ed Callahan would loan TV's to those we pulled the sets from. He was extremely smart and knew who would buy. I don't remember ever taking one back. That was when I was a kid in the late '70's. I was his nieghbor and hung around to get my set repaired and he let me go on service calls. I loved meeting the people and seeing the homes. I think Ed liked having me around as his own two sons were grown and I'm sure he used to take them when they were young.
oldtvman and Chad, I remember being about 11 when I realized many adults thought color adjustment was for experts only! Many did not want me touching thier expensive TV! I think many would try to adjust the grass or the sky and get lost when it came to adjusting the other colors. I guess they thought each color was adjusted seperately. I remember adjusting for natural fleshtones and getting that look of disappointment from some frustrated adult. My grandfather didn't even want me to change the channel or touch the on-off switch on his Zenith Chromacolor. If I even got close to the set his face would express concern on the verge of anger. Many years later my brother was digging near the back door of Grandad's house and found what I believe to be the chassis to that set. Why it was there I do not know. Daniel Schaeffer was my Granddad. He was very smart. Maybe too smart for his own good. I want to get that chassis if it's still there. I guess I inherited some of his "unique" thinking! Dave S., Great story! You definately should find out if the set is still there. Stranger things have happened! Thanks, John
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#7
12-07-2005, 12:45 AM
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I was a bad kid on occasion... In the late 60s, I was about 2 or 3 and I recall DELIBERATELY twisting every pot on the front of my mother's friend's Admiral 21" roundie. I was instructed severely NOT TO TOUCH IT!!!!!. Well, you tell an Irish toddler NOT to do something in that tone of voice, and consider it DONE. Even if the person doing the severe instruction happened to be an Air Force Captain.
Best I can tell, they never figured out how the TV got screwed up. I remember the owners of the TV complaining "What happened?! It seems to have a problem" ... "I guess we'll call for repairs". That's about all I remember. So Capt. P. Drawhorn of Torrance, CA; I confess. Charles
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#8
12-07-2005, 12:29 PM
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Even today, most TVs I see in friend's homes are set up way wrong.
Then again, I saw a cheap chinese LCD tv at the soopermarket the other week. The picture was horrid - it looked like a bad avi movie on an old pentium in 256 colors. I'm sure the place is selling tons of them because they're 'flat panel TVs'. Seriously, the existing generation of flat panel TV sets are so horrid, it's stupid. But then, what do you expect from a country full of people who Aiwa boom boxes as the 'home stereo'?
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#10
12-07-2005, 07:51 PM
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Well, we're a little OT, but hey, maybe not!
Quote:
I guess someday, maybe soon, we'll be looking back to the pioneer days of digital flat panel color TV and fondly remember LCD's low contrast ratios and slow pixel refresh rates and plasma contouring as charming artifacts from the dawn of the digital days! Remember, if it's digital, that means it's "perfect"! 
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#11
12-08-2005, 03:24 PM
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We were in Sears yesterday...the first thing when you walk in the door is a wall of tv sets. I told my wife, and its true, that department has changed an amazing amount in the last few years. What even she noticed was that most of them were adjusted way off (green). A few were adjusted right & they stood out really well.
One of the few sets I ever sold for "profit" (though I really just broke even) was a late 60s Philco-Ford color console. Darn, I wish I kept it. Danish modern cabinet & beautiful picture. Anyway, the used furniture store I sold it to sold it to this guy with a house full of kids & a short fuse. He called the store with a problem & they called me so I went to check it out. When I got there he had hauled the set out to the shed. He picked this console up and carried it inside by himself, plops it in the middle of the living room & turns it on. I immedietly see the problem. One of the kids had turned the horiz hold control & the picture was out of sync. I turned it back & he thanked me. That was a scary guy. I fear he might have been the type to physically abuse his wife & kids. While I was there he was real hyper & knocked over a glass of iced tea. He threw it across the room & yelled out his wife & young kids like it was their fault. Sad. That Philco deserved a better home!
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Bryan
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#12
12-08-2005, 09:13 PM
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The Bogarts 1964
They bought it from Chaiet TV in New Paltz NY One year before cable. That would start in '65 by my Scout Master with a loan from his mother-in-law for $50000. I remember watching Hogan's Heroes. The color was really cool. That Zenith Roundie put out a great pic! I remember the Wild Wild West. They had a fairly decent signal from a roof top antenna.
About the same year my uncle in Highland bought a Philco roadie and being on the top of the hill he got a good pic. Watched a lot of college football from WABC Channel 7 NY. Uncle Dick was a camera buff so that set was always set right. Color and tint were perfect. He got me going in audio and radio. In 1966, I finally convinced Sam Chaiet of the above store to let me work for him. He kept saying no. And I kept at it. Told him I'd work for the knowledge. Loved the smell of new Zenith TV coming out of the box. Damn I miss it! 1966! Miss Sam too! That was the year Zenith started selling rectangular sets. By 1967 I got my Dad to get one. We got NBC and CBS well and ABC on a good night. The parents were hesitate but they loved that Zenith!! Then cable came through. Had to plead with them. They loved that too. My Scout Master gave me a spool of cable and several splitters and said"help yourself." Ran wires all over the house. Livingroom, my bedroom of course! Then the den. We were all set!! TV was BETTER then. Comedies were funny! Mission Impossible! and Laugh In! My Dad was in his glory days. Healthy and Happy. Things were good!!  Ahh early color TV. It was great! and I had a good eye! That Zenith always had a great picture!!! Man I miss that life somedays. We had it all. A good life. Eric 
Last edited by stereofisher; 12-08-2005 at 09:15 PM.
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#13
12-08-2005, 11:39 PM
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charles i was reading your first message and you mentioned fedco,man we still have our fedco card,now there were two locations,we went to the one on lacienega,i cant remember where the other one was.
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"its the way that you make"
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#14
12-09-2005, 01:21 AM
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The other one in SoCal was in Van Nuys near Saticoy and Sepulveda... My mother had to drive out there once when she bought a 35mm slide projector on La Cienega and it turned out to be out of stock after she'd paid and went to the back for pickup. I still have my Fedco card too! Interesting point about Fedco: Last purchase there was a 27" Zenith console for an elderly lady customer, and Fedco was the only place where I could find a new wood console that recently. That was at Christmas of '93. The TV had a nice 15-day life, then was smashed and crushed at 4:31 AM on January 17th '94 in the lady's apartment in Panorama City. She escaped OK. (Northridge Earthquake) I suppose that this was a good ending for it that likely saved me embarrassment since I recommended that TV to the lady not yet knowing what that dreadful A68ACT00X picture tube was like
 Charles
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