Well, it is crude - it has been a LONG time since I've written markup, but...

I've started a webpage displaying ads and information I've found about large-screen black & white TVs in the 1970's. I'll also be looking into 19-inch sets in the 1980's too.

See it here, in all its lo-fidelity glory (http://members.cox.net/audubon5425/latebw.htm)

I'm sure that Curtis-Mathes set as well as that metal cased Sylvania are the rarest of them all. I think the last ad's that I remember seeing for a 19" B&W set were in the JC Penny Christmas catalog from the late '80's. I think the newest 19" B&W that I've worked on was a mid '80's Philco, which has a Samsung chassis and CRT in it.

I think I remember having a 1986 or so Magnavox 13" B&W set.

Yeah, the 12" sets stayed around until at least the mid '90's. I remember some cheap "Action" brand BPC 12" sets from the mid '90's that had a standard tuner and ran off of a 12V wall wart. I think they sold new for $29.99 and were, of course, very cheaply made.

They need to make a 48" BW flat screen. It could sell for $999 instead of $1,999. It could use 275 watts instead of 650 too.

Only if I could get it with Instant-On

I've been getting interested in these late model b/w sets too. Just picked up a 1980 Zenith 16" b/w table set. The model # is M162W, chassis 19MB1X.

Here's a 1981 ad from the montgomery ward Christmas catalog for a 19" B&W set.

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/ff341/radiotvnut/1981_xx_xx20Montgomery20Ward20Chris.jpg

Here's a 1981 ad from the montgomery ward Christmas catalog...

At the bottom of that page I see RCA's CED videodisc system. What a bomb that turned out to be. :thumbsdn: I worked for RCA at the time, and RCA tried real hard to get people to buy this thing, but everyone wanted VCRs instead. Which RCA got from Japan and sold.

I saw the CED ad, too-how competitive were those prices vs. laserdisc and VHS? I recently picked up an early 80's VHS of Gone With the Wind and it had some crazy price, like 80 dollars or so.

I seem to remember pretty much all movies in the early/mid-80s were in the $50-80 range, maybe higher. Quite an investment for video stores, I guess.

I looked at a 19" Zenith bw at the local dealer, it must have been about '84? I think it was marked $179 but Mr. Evey was willing to knock about $20 off that. Below it was an AC/DC Zenith 12" bw that, I seem to recall, had a leather case. Expensive! I really, really wanted that 19" but my parents thought it was foolish to spend that kinda money on bw. I instead ended up with a $79 12" bw Midland from Western Auto.

Years ago, I was given one of those 19" Zenith B&W portables with electronic keypad tuning by a TV shop. Unfortunately, it had been dropped and the CRT was busted as well as the CRT socket board. Now, I'm wishing that I would have kept it and found a CRT for it.

Interesting thread, makes me remember... I had to have gotten one of the last black and white TVs made, it was a 13 inch Orion new out of the box probably from 1994 or so. Got it for Christmas when I was very young, worked for a couple years and died. I don't remember why it quit on me, nor would I have been able to fix it either (I would have been about 5 years old haha). After that TV died my dad gave me his old GE Performance tv, about the same thing except about 30 years older and red in color. I still have that GE, and it still works amazingly enough...

A college bud of mine got a 19" B&W set for Xmas, 1976. I remember it being watched by us quite a bit, 'cause it was at least a decent size.

Interesting thread, makes me remember... I had to have gotten one of the last black and white TVs made, it was a 13 inch Orion new out of the box probably from 1994 or so. Got it for Christmas when I was very young, worked for a couple years and died. I don't remember why it quit on me, nor would I have been able to fix it either (I would have been about 5 years old haha). After that TV died my dad gave me his old GE Performance tv, about the same thing except about 30 years older and red in color. I still have that GE, and it still works amazingly enough...

That's probably similar to those "Action" branded sets that were sold at about the same time period. They were solid black in color, were cheaply made, and ran off of a 12V wall wart or optional car cord. Some of the very last B&W TV's were those 5" battery operated models that were sold right up until the DTV transition. They were made in China, were sold in many case colors under several brand names, and the last ones sold for around $14.99. Some of them even had A/V input jacks on the rear. I've got 2 or 3 such TV's in various operating conditions. Several years ago, my flea market friend found a couple of these that were defective out of the box. One of them had a loose deflection yoke and the other one had it's CRT socket unplugged. Both were easy fixes; but, these sets are not as well built, nor do they last as long, as the older B&W 5" portables from the '60's and '70's. Even at that, it's hard to imagine a new TV of any type selling for $14.99.

When a graduated from high school in '95, I went off to spend a few weeks at the state run rehab center for the blind. In the dorm supervisor's room, there was either a 19" or 21" Sony B&W portable with lighted dials and it was housed in a wooden case. That's the only Sony B&W set that I've seen that had a screen larger than 12". I remember taking a 12" mid '70's GE (XB chassis) white cased B&W for me to watch and I ended up selling it to one of the instructors before I left for $15.