Here's a picture of my newest color acquisition, it's a 1955 Philco TV-123. It's due to be delivered around the first week of December. Don't know if it works, but it is from the original owner and appears to have been kept in the main house all these years.


I've been back working on the 15" Philco prototype set and am now stumped with an AGC problem, not having any documentation or schematic it's been a real nightmare. The picture is washed out, it appears that the IF gain is down completely. There is no AGC control on this set to adjust, I have keying pulses but not enough video to turn on the AGC keying circuit. Maybe when I have the schematic traced and drawn out I can find the problem.

Chuck

ChuckA,

Your vintage color collection is really growing nicely you lucky dog! :)

Chuck, that's a beautiful set! It's amazing how color styling changed in the matter of a few years. Can't be many Philcos around ;)

Wow.. That gentleman looks pristine !! Congrats !! Hope the CRT's still good.-Sandy G.

I'm hoping it's good also, at least a 21AX isn't as impossible to find as a 15G.

Here's a shot of the insides, really clean also.


Chuck

That power transformer is HUGE! The only other place I have seen one like that is in a Dukane tube PA amp. This is a real Philco design, not an RCA clone, right?

That is about the most unusual early color TV I have ever seen. I hope it works. I did not realize Philco made that set. Great find.

Chuck,
Another beautiful addition to your Philco color collection. I've only seen one other in Steve McVoy's ETF collection. I'm pretty sure the chassis was Philco designed & built. Any other details as to how you located this set? And did the owner say when it was last in use?

When I first looked at the rear view I thought that you had posted the picture turned 90 degrees to the left....as the chassis is on that side. Upon closer examination the speakers prove otherwise!

How many other sets had such an arrangement?

Anthony

thats funny,i was also turning my head sideways to look at it..:)
terr

I think the RCA color sets from CTC-4 through CTC-10? used the sideways chassis.

Chaud,
Good call. With the exception of the RCA CTC-5 models most all RCA 50's color sets had the chassis mounted vertically. This also holds true, with some exceptions, for most other manufacturers color sets.

If you look you can see the chassis is actually mounted to a board that slides into the cabinet, I think the CBS RX90 sets had the same arrangement.

I don't have to much info yet on how long the set was in use, after it arrives I'll contact him again for the particulars. I was hoping there was some original paper with it, but no such luck.


The speaker grille layout is interesting, I finally found some info on it on Tom Genova's site (http://www.tvhistory.tv/1955-Philco-Brochure1.jpg).

Philco called it "Phonorama Acoustic Lens System"
Looks like it was used on their high end sets for a couple of years.

Chuck

My CTC-11 has a vertical chassis; CTC-5 is horizontal.

I have a soft spot for Philco-this is a wonderful set, great find.

The Philco was delivered yesterday by Eric's Shipping. It is in excellent condition with only a few light scratches in the finish. The picture tube checks like new, it's Philco branded. It appears the set was used for a while as most of the tubes are non Philco, I'll have to check date codes to see when the last ones were changed out.

Set has UHF tuner installed with a projection style dial, channels show in the small window at the top of the vertical trim covering the controls, it is black until the tuner is switched to UHF position.

I tried bringing it up on a variac, but got nothing except filaments. I did look under the chassis and it is full of black beauties mostly split and leaking. I'll try to get to this project after the 15" Philco is running.


Chuck

Congrats on finding both a rare and attractive set! Glad to hear the CRT checks like new. That will make you more inclined to finish the 15" set and then get started on this one so we can all see! At least you know you can get a Sams for this 21" set.

Curious... what is the big knob at the bottom under the verticle trim? Is that the UHF?

The bottom knob is volume and tone controls. The UHF tuner is tied to the VHF fine tuning control, not sure how it works until I get the chassis out.

I did get some more info on the set. It was acquired by an ABC employee in '55 or '56 as an unclaimed prize from a game show. I wonder which show was giving away color TV's in 1955-56


Chuck

Thanks Chuck,
I always appreciate hearing some of the history of these rare early color sets. I can't imagine an ABC quiz show giving away a color set. in 1956 ABC was about 5-6 years away from their first color telecasts. Maybe the ABC brass decided to pull the set as a prize and the lucky employee was able to purchase it at discount. I have a tape of an old NBC kinescope of the "This Is Your Life" program (1957) and they gave away an RCA "Wingate" CTC-5 color set to the subject of the week Phil Harris. nice shot of the set on the tape.

Seems they should have put the volume knob higher up being it it one of the main controls. Would not have been a good set for someone with a bad back. Guess they didn't think of being "user friendly" back in those days.

Update on the Philco TV-123.

After 6 months of on and off restoration I have the TV-123 operating. Luckily there were no major problems to fix, replaced all the "black beauties" that Philco seemed to love, lots of electrolytics, HV capacitors that were shorted, and a few bad tubes. The biggest problem I ran into was having to reconstruct the reactance tube coil. The original uses a hex style slug for adjusting, but after 50 years the coil form shrunk and as soon as I moved the slug it froze in the form. Of course trying to free it only destroyed the slug and form, a spare one from another chassis did the same, so I rewound the coil on a new form that uses the brass screw style adjusting slug.

Now on to the second one.

Chuck

For those interested in a little more history of this set I have added some information from documents from a Philco engineer to my web site at: http://www.myvintagetv.com/philco_tv123.htm

Presently only four confirmed complete sets are known, one unconfirmed, and two chassis only. If you know of any sets out there I would appreciate any information, I am building a database to try and confirm the story that only 500 of these were produced.

Also I have about a thousand of pages of documentation about the Philco "Apple Receiver" project, internal memos, engineering reports, and schematics, covering 1950 to 1960. I have listed a bibliography of the documents at: http://www.myvintagetv.com/philco_apple_tube.htm

Many thanks to DaveA for saving these from the landfill.

I hope to scan the documents and make them available to download from my site or make them available on a CD due to the size of the scans, stay tuned.


Chuck

Wow !! Gorgeous picture !! I salute you, sir !! -Sandy G.

Beautiful restoration Chuck. Finally got to see its sister at the ETF convention. Philco went the extra mile with cabinet design and a blockbuster chassis.

---

The TV-123 was Philco's first production color set, released for the 1956 model year.

There were 4 Runs over its short production life.


Chuck

I wonder what would have happened if Philco pushed these sets instead of the Predictas? Looking at those great screen shots-the Philco guys knew what they were doing.

Originally posted by bgadow
I wonder what would have happened if Philco pushed these sets instead of the Predictas? Looking at those great screen shots-the Philco guys knew what they were doing.

I agree. Philco's early b&w TVs were always good (I had a Microgrid 390 with cascode tuner in the early '70s that worked great until the base came off the CRT and the lead wires broke off at the neck, ruining the tube :( ) and, from the looks of the screen shots of the color set, they knew their stuff when color came along as well. I especially like the screen shot of the KYW-TV news anchor. I live near Cleveland, and remember when KYW was the NBC affiliate there from 1955-65. Good to know they are still alive and well in Philly as an affiliate of the Eye Network.

I also like the screen shot from CNN. Beautiful picture for a TV set as old as I am (I was born in 1956). It makes me wonder, though. How did you get that picture from a cable channel? I don't see a cable box anywhere on top of the set.

Originally posted by Jeffhs
How did you get that picture from a cable channel? I don't see a cable box anywhere on top of the set.

Jeff,

It was the local channel 3 broadcasting a feed from CNN. The logo is in the lower right corner.


Chuck

You need a scorecard to keep track of this. Follow along closely.

I now have Chuck A's TV-123. He had mine for restoration but time got in the way and we decided to make a major three-way deal. My TV-123 needing restoration went to John Folsom in Florida. Chuck's fully restored set came to me. Cash moved around. Chuck gets to look at my 21CT55 chassis for a problem.

When it arrived at my house in the rain last fall, it went in the den and Chuck smiled and left. I had it on for about 1/2 hour and...poof...it quit. No HV.

Assorted major house repairs left the set waiting for looking at with lot's of consultation in the interim. The prime suspect was the BIG HV donut cap. Tubes swaps did nothing.

John supplied a modern donut cap and today was open-chassis surgery. The new donut had different threads so a bit of measuring, a trip to True Value and some drilling of mount holes got it in place.

Power up and we were making HV after one fuse change. A 53 year old 1/2 amp HV fuse. But the H osc was waaaay off. While staring at it and thinking about what could be wrong, it snapped in to place after about two minutes. ??? Back to life!

Grey-scale is a bear to set and it is close but not the best. Convergence is not the best, but good for now. The right side is not co-operating. The pic overloads at just above minimum contrast. The color control has enough color for another set. And there is audio buzz when color is tuned properly. All that for later. This set falls in to the it-is-working-do-not-mess-with-it-too-much category. A cooling fan will be considered if I can find a quiet one.

There are still only six of them.

And I ran it for an hour Chuck! He did an amazing restoration under the chassis. It is Technicolor under there with all the new caps. Now we wait to hear if John gets his/mine going.

I added a new set photo with the usual washed out CRT and a new screen shot because the old photos are not available.

Slow and sure wins the race. My thanks to all,

Dave A

beautiful set!!!!

I wonder...Did these beasties collectively give this much trouble 50 some odd years ago ? If they did, its a wonder color TV ever caught on....

Sandy,

I would go with the obvious. All our posts rave about the RCA's just working...with some modern help and a few parts.

Philco engineers were in charge here. And add on the mods to this set that RCA never did. They just ran out a new chassis.

RCA had the "Muntzing" right in their manufacturing. Simplify and let the marketing department run the show. You could call it "Sarnoffing".

Dave A

Dave,

I'm glad to hear that the set "lives" again. For the gray scale and convergence, you just need to make sure the CRT is pointing to true north (of course with the 15 degree magnetic correction), set aside 2 to 3 hours, and have a nice comfortable pillow to keep your butt from falling asleep while you are diddling all those hidden front panel controls, and it will be back to making perfect pictures. :D


Chuck

I'm glad the HV cap fixed the problem. The set looks really great.
Cliff