View Full Version : What are the chances of finding a couple of sets from my childhood?


JCFitz
05-13-2011, 03:27 PM
I wonder how many people on here have found sets from their childhood and if I have any chances on finding a couple? It seems my childhood record players are much easier than tvs except my mom's old Wards Hi/fi which because it was a Montgomery Ward product there werent probably enough sold let alone survivors to have any chance at finding one.It would be nice to have as it may have been what got me interested in electronics. I watched my aunt work on the record changer(made by VM) when I was about 5 or 6 and I was fascinated by all those glowing tubes inside.After that is when i started taking things apart to see what made them tick.I had no power to save that as I was 8 when my mom got rid of it. I did have the power but not the space or future thought to try to save the 2 tvs I wish I had back.

Bryan's CTC25 that I hope to take off his hands is probably the closest I've seen since childhood of my dad's tv in the 70s.I believe it is the same chassis and front control layout,just a different cabinet style.Never had ownership of that one so I had no power to save the original.

My mom's tvs are harder. The earliest tv I remember was a RCA 19" b/w portable from the late 60s.It's in some pictures of me as a baby that my mom has. Can't remember what chassis but it had the controls on top and a slide rule UHF dial.I stripped that tv almost 30 years ago as the crt was gone and my aunt had fried something by putting tubes in the wrong socket.:tears:

The color portable she had was a GE and she only had it a couple of years before she married her former husband before my current stepfather.I don't have enough memory of that one to tell what it was and there are no pictures of me or any family members with it.It was junky and I don't care if I find it.:thumbsdn:

The tv we had until my early teens there are probably no survivors..lol as it was a Sears/Warwick set. My boss said they didn't put much effort into fixing them at Sears and often condemned them.It was a 1974 Mediterranean style console. All solid state with plug in modules. There are pictures of me with that set also.Even though it was not a remote set(some versions of it were) the tuner controls and volume/color buttons all were on a slide that when slid in a door closed and hid them.The channel numbers would still be visible lit up.When slid out all the way they stuck out at an angle. My mom's husband at the time put up an outdoor antenna on a tower and I did a lot of DXing with that tv.I'd love to find one but it seems far more tube era sets survive than a trouble prone solid state set from the 70s especially an odball like a Sears tv.

It quit in 1983 and was replaced with a Zenith 19" remote set which sat on top of it until she married my stepfather. I moved in with my grandmother at 18 and took the set with me. Using parts from another set and a Philco tube found upstairs at the shop I work at I fixed it and sold it at an auction. :nono:

I kinda should have saved the parts set also as it was unique and I've never seen another. it was a copy of the Zenith Avanti style cabinet.I've never seen anything but Zeniths in that style cabinet before or since.

bgadow
05-13-2011, 09:47 PM
I think you're right, the Sears is probably going to be the toughest and the RCA bw next in line. I still have a 19" RCA bw that I got from you, but of course that isn't the right one. Early 60s portables seem to show up more often than the later ones when I guess people were more into buying color.

I can't remember seeing a Sears console that age. A couple times I've seen a cheap one from the late 70s/early 80s. (there was one in the Salvation Army store a year or so ago) Someday one is bound to turn up on here, though.

If you ever get the room, let me know-be happy to pass that CTC-25 off to you. I need to really clear out some excess sets this summer.

JCFitz
05-14-2011, 12:50 AM
At least I can find out what model the Sears is as I have the Sams somewhere around here.The 2 things that make unlikely survival besides being a Sears set is it was made by Warwick(broke down a lot) and instant on(kills CRTs).Probably the original tv I had being an auction purchased tv for a pittance was probably tossed the 1st time it gave trouble.

I have no idea what model or chassis the RCA was except it was one of those 60s slimline models black and silver in color. The speaker was on top on the left.Tuners on right with a slide rule for UHF. Some of the tubes that I remember were 4JC6,4JD6 if tubes stick out in my memory probably because of the JC...lol. I think the audio output tube was 12FX5.The rest of the tubes I'm drawing a blank. The circuit board with most of the circuitry was on the right side facing the back of the set. If I had a bunch of 60s Sams to peruse I bet I could indentify it. No pictures of one have been found searching the net so far.

kx250rider
05-15-2011, 11:55 AM
I've found almost all of them over the past 35 years of interest in old TVs... but it's waiting and watching game. In my case, we had a GE 21" B&W console (conventional upright console with speaker below; not one of the ultra-modern ones which seem to be the collectible GEs). I've never found one in the exact cabinet, but I have found a couple same chassis and slight cabinet variation. The other was an RCA 19" Sportabout portable from the mid 60s... I bet the same or similar to what JCfitz is describing! Actually I've run across several of those, plus I still have the original one (belonged to my aunt, and I kept it when she passed away). The only one I still would kind of like to find, and have never seen, is a Hitachi CWA-200 12" delta-gun color portable 1970-ish; very early solid state set which had a big emblem on it "SOLID STATE/ALL TRANSISTOR" and no "IC-SOLID STATE" as the mid-70s Hitachis had. I went with my mother to buy that set at Fedco, and I wish I had kept it. I sold it when I was a teen, and after I had gotten into TVs and had installed bigger better sets in it's place. (The CWA-200 was a basic black plastic case with a handle on top, and no wood trim on it). The "cheapie", I guess you'd say.

Charles

stevensmtih1
05-16-2011, 06:17 AM
watched my aunt work on the record changer(made by VM) when I was about 5 or 6 and I was fascinated by all those glowing tubes inside.