I think it's a CTC-20.

http://cgi.ebay.com/RCA-Console-TV-with-Turntable-Radio_W0QQitemZ270338438893QQihZ017QQcategoryZ3320 QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Ahh sh*t. Ebay is blocked at my work. Could you steal a pic from the auction and post it here please? I wanna take a look at 'er. But I'm sure it's too far away....blah blah blah...

If you like it I'm guessing the path is pretty clear. :)

Ooooooh. dats purdy! where is it located? Thanks for the pic!

Ooooooh. dats purdy! where is it located? Thanks for the pic!

I would guess not too terribly far from you. Peoria Heights, Illinois.

208 miles. Too far for my truck right now. It is however, by my Mom's house. I don't think she would go get it though.

That is a pretty gal indeed! And just 10 hours from me too. Might have to look at the possibilities.....:smoke:

I just might get killed for bringing another tv in the house though.:D A risk worth taking. The bad news is it will be about a month or so before I could get it. I know if Zenithfan1 ends up with it, it will be loved.

Yes it would! :)

Thats way down state from me, 150 miles one way. That set looks like a CTC-16. I always thought combos should automatically come with a remote control. It just doesn't seem right to spend all the money and cheap out on the remote option.

drh4683 said: Thats way down state from me, 150 miles one way. That set looks like a CTC-16. I always thought combos should automatically come with a remote control. It just doesn't seem right to spend all the money and cheap out on the remote option.


I second that it looks like a CTC-16. I may be all wet on this and I am sure I will be corrected, but didn't the roundie RCA's end at the CTC-16. For some reason I remember that the CTC-17 ushered in the rectangular crt's. I could be wrong and welcome the correction.

The seller says the tv comes on...scary that it was tried but at least it didn't get fried as far as we know anyway. :D

Roy

I second that it looks like a CTC-16. I may be all wet on this and I am sure I will be corrected, but didn't the roundie RCA's end at the CTC-16. For some reason I remember that the CTC-17 ushered in the rectangular crt's. I could be wrong and welcome the correction.

The seller says the tv comes on...scary that it was tried but at least it didn't get fried as far as we know anyway. :D

Roy

I thought the 16 was the last also. I would like to know for sure though.

i have contacted the seller of this item.he said the set comes on and he has watched some programs.i like this myself.however.it is too far away from me.interesting to see if it has been restored in any way.nice cabinet though!

There is an error in the item description. The seller states that this console is "believed to be" from the 1950s. This is very unlikely, as this particular control-cluster layout is straight out of the mid-1960s (when I was in grade school, and even junior high, we had RCA table-model b&w sets on carts with the same type of control panel). Also, the TV being discussed here has UHF, which was not widely available as a stock feature on most televisions in the '50s; most TVs of that era were VHF only and required an external converter to receive UHF stations, the only exceptions being sets sold in markets such as Fort Wayne, Indiana, Youngstown, Ohio, Fresno, California, et al. that had only UHF stations. Most areas did not get UHF until at least the mid-sixties, so there would be little use for a UHF tuner in an all-channel TV sold, for example, in Cleveland before 1965; the city's first UHF station, NET (now PBS) affiliate WVIZ, channel 25, went on the air that year.

Some markets did not get UHF until as late as the '70s, so again, if one lived in such a market and had an all-channel TV, the extra channel coverage would be wasted, until or unless one or more UHF station(s) was/were put on the air or the set owner decided to erect a huge UHF antenna and tried to receive stations from nearby (or not so nearby) markets. Most people did not go to the trouble of putting up such monster UHF arrays. If their area didn't have UHF at the time they bought the TV, they just waited until the first UHF station arrived, meanwhile leaving the TV's UHF tuner set exactly where it was when the set was delivered.


The cabinet style of the console we are discussing is wrong for the '50s as well. Most 1950s-era TVs had much more ornate cabinets; for example, my aunt once had a Garod-Majestic round-tube 16" b&w set, early-1950s vintage, that was in a dark wood cabinet with doors over the CRT. On those doors were no fewer than three cast-iron door pulls each. This type of ornate cabinet detailing quickly went out of style; by the seventies, TV manufacturers such as Zenith, et al. were using plastic accent pieces on their sets' cabinets. The cabinets themselves were, again by the 1970s, being made of particle board with wood veneers or, worse, photo-finish (the latter actually being photographs of real wood on heavy paper, which were pasted on to cheap wood cabinets). The RCA TV in the eBay listing referenced here looks to me to have a genuine wood cabinet; however, the fact that the TV has a UHF tuner and the very design of the control cluster all but shouts mid-to-late 1960s.

The CTC-17 was the first rectangular from RCA, but then they had one more roundie chassis they came out with, the CTC-20. Remember that most companies sold rectangular and round alongside each other for awhile as the newer sets were more expensive to make.

seller sent pics of this set.it has a green raster.radio and phono is non operational.has fungus growing on some parts of this unit.it looks to have been in a damp basement for quite a while.crt looks bright though.this may be a problem riddled set.i like the cabinet,but it is much too long a drive to get this one.good luck to anyone who gets this one.

About 7 hours one way for me. I will have to think about it.

Bill R

This set is from the 1965 catalogue and is called "The Yorktown" Mark 10 Series
HF-863. High-styled "formal" Early American design, rich in sculptured detail, in selected hardwood solids with veneers of Antiqued Colonial Maple.
120 watts peak power (60 watts EIA), frequency response 45 to 20,000 cps. Two Diaphonic duo-cone speakers plus six 3 1/2" tweeters. Deluxe 9-tube FM-AM with FM Stereo. Lighted phonograph compartment, FM Stereo indicator and tuning controls. Plug-in jack for stereo headphones (headphones optional, extra. (H-30"; W-61 7/8"; D-26 1/8"

Not a bad stereo, at least it has that going for it once it's fixed. Those solid state RCA stereos are miserable.

zenithfan1: Not a bad stereo, at least it has that going for it once it's fixed. Those solid state RCA stereos are miserable.

I may be a bit slow, but I have both tube and solid state RCA console stereo combo sets and I am trying to figure out what is so miserable about the solid state versions. Although the stereo in my CTC-40 combo is odd to me in the fact that the tv sound is channeled through the stereo, which makes the tv sound really good, but wasn't configured this way in my earlier combos.

My sweet ol HH-853 Brandywine CTC-21 combo that I grew up with has a rich, warm sound with good bass response through the volume range which is quite impressive and with none of the ear fatigue generated by most of today's crap. It epecially sounds fantastic since I have restored it and changed out the old caps. Both the CTC-21 combo and the CTC-40 combo use those big ol 16" oval subs with a 6" oval mid and pair of 3.5" tweets on each channel.

I also have a CTC-16 combo with a tube stereo in it that, to me, has a very muddy sound but then there is the console stereo which is tube and has what looks to be a 15" sub in the center with detachable speaker boxes on the sides that has a crisp, clean and magnificent sound and it hasn't even been restored yet.

Additionally, I have several RCA solid state stand alone radios with the big oval speaker in them and, IMHO, they have a rich sound which surprised me when I first heard them. While not quite as warm as RCA or Zenith's tube radios, they are remarkably close and powerful.

Now I also have a few RCA radios from the early to late 70's that I must say, again IMHO that just stink by comparison to the 1970 and prior units and that is why there are only a few in my collection.

I realize this is all opinion but a rather strong one so I am curious, what makes the solid state stereos so miserable? Is the reference to the 70's units or solid state in general?

Being a '65 model, I'm sure this combo uses a hybrid stereo. Probably a tube tuner and SS amp.

I recently repaired a '70 solid state RCA solid state stereo. It needed a re-cap to work right and it sounded pretty good for a lower end console. The main thing I didn't like about it was the use of encapsulated circuit "modules" that soldered to the main PCB. I'm sure those modules have long been discontinued and the Sam's does not give a schematic of the modules. If one of these modules goes sour, you'd probably be screwed. I don't know exactly when RCA started using these "modules". I have a '67 CTC25 combo with a SS stereo; but, have never paid much attention to the stereo chassis to see what's on it.

I may be a bit slow, but I have both tube and solid state RCA console stereo combo sets and I am trying to figure out what is so miserable about the solid state versions. Although the stereo in my CTC-40 combo is odd to me in the fact that the tv sound is channeled through the stereo, which makes the tv sound really good, but wasn't configured this way in my earlier combos.

My sweet ol HH-853 Brandywine CTC-21 combo that I grew up with has a rich, warm sound with good bass response through the volume range which is quite impressive and with none of the ear fatigue generated by most of today's crap. It epecially sounds fantastic since I have restored it and changed out the old caps. Both the CTC-21 combo and the CTC-40 combo use those big ol 16" oval subs with a 6" oval mid and pair of 3.5" tweets on each channel.

I also have a CTC-16 combo with a tube stereo in it that, to me, has a very muddy sound but then there is the console stereo which is tube and has what looks to be a 15" sub in the center with detachable speaker boxes on the sides that has a crisp, clean and magnificent sound and it hasn't even been restored yet.

Additionally, I have several RCA solid state stand alone radios with the big oval speaker in them and, IMHO, they have a rich sound which surprised me when I first heard them. While not quite as warm as RCA or Zenith's tube radios, they are remarkably close and powerful.

Now I also have a few RCA radios from the early to late 70's that I must say, again IMHO that just stink by comparison to the 1970 and prior units and that is why there are only a few in my collection.

I realize this is all opinion but a rather strong one so I am curious, what makes the solid state stereos so miserable? Is the reference to the 70's units or solid state in general?

I don't think it was just RCA. Most all consumer table radios went to pot in the '70's. That's when the "bean counters" took full control and most, if not all, consumer radios were made everywhere BUT the USA.

I too have had, over the years, several RCA solid state table radios from the mid to late '60's and most seem to be decent performers. Several years ago, I fixed a nice "RCA Victor" wooden cabinet AM/FM solid state table radio for an old man and I was impressed with it's sound quality.

I have noticed in my personal experience that RCA stereos and radios started getting cheaper and cheaper by the year starting in 1965. The early SS units had those crappy germanium output transistors that sounded muffled. The high end was just non existent. The higher end units on the other hand still had a nice sound for the most part. I have had many RCA consoles and have gotten rid of every single one of them. I think the cabinets are junk too. I use a Motorola tube set with a PP 6V6 amp in a Drexel cabinet for my console and will never try RCA again. I use Sansui receivers for everything else. Zenith SS sets were not very impressive either. Their tube sets sounded great though. The Moto sounded good enough for me to drop off my 1965 Maggie SS set with 15" woofers to the Good Will.