A few pages about color TV from Technician Magazine, taken from the July through November 1954 issues.

Includes some wildly optimistic predictions of color sales. Also has press release statements about various large-screen color CRT's under development, including a rectangular color CRT under development at DuMont that I never heard of before.

Thank you for the links. I enjoyed those early notes.

Quite interesting...lots of broken promises there! The Chromatron, the tubes from DuMont & Philco, CBS cranking out color crt's by the boxcar load...they had high hopes at least!

makes me wanna save all the digital TV literature i see, i wonder in 50 years what we'll say when we look back on that? What about HD radio? Im so sick of hearing the commercials for it im about to abandon terrestrial radio all togeather and give into the demons that are satallite radio. ugh...compressed audio.

It just took a whole lot longer than they figured for color sales to skyrocket. 10 years later they did sell box car loads of them. And then 10 years after that the vcr recorders came to market the same way. First very expensive and very few of them in homes when then all of a sudden the market went crazy and they were sold in the discount stores for almost nothing.

Marketing is a curious business. I am pretty sure hdtv will be the same trend though. When it finally comes it will come big. Prices will have to hit the floor first though.

I remember paying $1200 for my first RCA top loading VHS vcr. It was so expensive I also had a service policy with RCA service company for it's maintenance. I think the service policy was about $135/year. I think that was the only time I was an early adopter of new technology. I learned after that, it was wise to wait until the price droped and the product was improved. I just bought a 42" Phillips LCD HDTV. Wanted a flat screen for years but refused to pay rediculous prices for the early models, which are now rather obsolete, compared to todays offerings.

Wayne, thanks for posting those great articles. Now I have to find that ANDREA color TV!

You mean the FADA? There's one next door to the Fountain Of Youth, but the unicorn keeps a close guard.



The one known "photo" of that set screams retouch so loudly it's deafening.

... And then 10 years after that the vcr recorders came to market the same way. ...

I had a similar experience with my first CD player. Most were still in the $500 range, when Marshall Field's, of all places, advertised a Philips player on sale for a short time for around $200. I showed the ad around work and about 4 of us rushed down to get one. The sales staff had no clue, we just said "give us that one!" A year or so later and the going price was $200 for all of them, and of course now you can pick up a portable unit at the drugstore for about $25.

Don't give up finding that 'engineering mock-up' of an early DuMont, Andrea, or FADA color prototype Color TV! It might be a real, complete, viable Color TV.

Everyone is familiar with the 1946 CBS/GE 'mock-up' below. This was in several period magazines. An unbelievable set, this console supposedly had a color scanning disc system, with projecting mirror and large projection screen. If you read the article, you'll be sure it was a fantasy TV.

But, I DID BUY this set about 10 years ago, and then resold it to a museum. There was actually one set that was produced, and I was really lucky to own it, at least for a few months! (I only have some B&W photos of the TV left, and copies of the manual and blueprints).

But, this should show everyone here, that some of those 'Couldn't exist' TVs, do in fact, sit in someone's basement! Just keep looking.

Harry

Here are two really bad scans of poor quality inkjet prints of photos of the set Harry was talking about. Sad to know it is lost to some obscure museum overseas.

Here are two really bad scans of poor quality inkjet prints of photos of the set Harry was talking about. Sad to know it is lost to some obscure museum overseas.

Well at least that is better than it being lost to a landfill.

So true.

One decent photo exists:

http://www.earlytelevision.org/field_sequential_prototypes.html

I've seen this set. The translucent coating on the screen has fallen off, but the set is in great shape otherwise.

The picture on John Folsoms RX43 is wonderful. So clear and natural.
Does any one know what the 1946 CBS/ GE mock up sold for when it went over seas?
Ed

I remember reading somewhere that color was really considered a big bust in the late '50s-early '60s, because all the industry big shots had pumped each other up on How Big It was Gonna Be..Even Sarnoff was kinda worried -RCA's bankers were starting to grumble pretty loudly about all the money they'd dumped into color, & how meager the returns had been. The local affiliates didn't want to invest in color systems if there were no viewers to watch them, & the public didn't want to invest in an expensive, unreliable toy if there was nothing to watch on it...And, remember, back then there was little, if any "cable"-all TV was pretty much over-the-air signals, & color suffered at any distance from the transmitter. Plus, TVs didn't have much of the color & picture correcting circuitry we take for granted now. I also can't remember seeing a roundie back in the day that was "set up" like we do now-almost invariably they'd have convergence, focus, or some other issues. B&W programs ended up being sort of a purpledy-green. Looking back, its almost amazing color TV development went as well as it did...

...Does any one know what the 1946 CBS/ GE mock up sold for when it went over seas? Ed...


Hey Ed,

The TV was NOT a mock-up, it was an actual, working prototype. It was complete with chassis, scanning disc, mirror and screen. It included a manual and blueprints (I guess, in case you wanted to build another).

At that point, maybe 12 years ago, Danny Gustafson was the only real buyer of pricey TVs, and although it was offered in the USA, for around $10K, no one thought it was worth that. Unfortunately, I need to turn merch over, just to pay my mortgage. An overseas Museum buyer thought it was a deal. (It has since been restored, and flipped for many times that price!)

I had it packed and shipped. So, it ended up out of the USA, but only after being offered on 'the circuit' for a couple of months. Back then, $10K was a lot for a vintage television. I had sold the Triniscope for about the same price, and my Sparton pre-war Mirror-in-the-lid for half that! Most of my TRK-12's were listed in the ARC, and sold for around $5K each. Now, with ebay, Steve, and the over-all USA and International TV interest, any of those sets would sell for double, triple.....today.

If I can find them, I'll post some scans of the photos I took at the time. There are lots of buried treasures out there, you just have to be lucky.

Harry

...Does any one know what the 1946 CBS/ GE mock up sold for when it went over seas? Ed...


Hey Ed,

The TV was NOT a mock-up, it was an actual, working prototype. It was complete with chassis, scanning disc, mirror and screen. It included a manual and blueprints (I guess, in case you wanted to build another).

At that point, maybe 12 years ago, Danny Gustafson was the only real buyer of pricey TVs, and although it was offered in the USA, for around $10K, no one thought it was worth that. Unfortunately, I need to turn merch over, just to pay my mortgage. An overseas Museum buyer thought it was a deal. (It has since been restored, and flipped for many times that price!)

I had it packed and shipped. So, it ended up out of the USA, but only after being offered on 'the circuit' for a couple of months. Back then, $10K was a lot for a vintage television. I had sold the Triniscope for about the same price, and my Sparton pre-war Mirror-in-the-lid for half that! Most of my TRK-12's were listed in the ARC, and sold for around $5K each. Now, with ebay, Steve, and the over-all USA and International TV interest, any of those sets would sell for double, triple.....today.

If I can find them, I'll post some scans of the photos I took at the time. There are lots of buried treasures out there, you just have to be lucky.

Harry

Hi Harry.
You do find some awesome tvs and 10 k sounds fair for a one of a kind set.
We all have to make a living and you are doing something that helps save the rare ones. I may not agree with the color conversion of a vintage tv but still you keep the chassis and tube so who am I to judge.
Do you have a collection at home? Do you restore the the tube type chassis in them? If you do, I bet they are really cool.
Thanks
Ed

There are only 2 or 3 areas of the country where I would expect to see many really rare sets: New York, and then maybe LA & Chicago, but mostly just the NY area. While there are numerous members here in the other cities there are not that many collectors on these forums from what should be the center of the hobby. Harry is in the perfect location for these great experimental sets. It would be highly unlikely for one to show up where I live-if so it would have meant some engineer moved to the waterfront here to retire and thought so much of the old equipment to bring it with him. I can always hold out hope! (Likewise I recall the newsclip from a local paper in 1954 reporting that a local merchant had sold a color TV!)

Bryan, that is generally true, but there are exceptions. Geoff Bourne's prewar iconoscope camera was found in West Virginia, a RCA Model 5 prototype color set that was recently auctioned was found in Kentucky, and the Gray Research color monitor we have in our collection came from Georgia.

Immediate postwar set can be found just about anywhere, since people often moved with them.

A few more scans from Technician 1954, related to the CBS Colortron color CRT.