Here's a set I haven't seen out in the wild for a long time--esp one with a seemingly good working 23EGP22 & chassis and a cabinet in mint condition! He had it mis-touted as a 1961 model. After a couple of emails to him he finally changed his ad. His price is way out of range but good luck to him. These sets were pretty much gone by 1970 because of the CRT.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=291081242874&ssPageName=ADME:X:RTQ:US:1123

I agree, it's a rare one. I'm thinking now about the 6LE8 do-it-all color demodulator circuit that I believe this chassis and others used. Reminds me od Mad Man Muntz. :D

I agree, it's a rare one. I'm thinking now about the 6LE8 do-it-all color demodulator circuit that I believe this chassis and others used. Reminds me od Mad Man Muntz. :D

That set has a totally different color circuit and is the first run of the TS908 series. The set uses 28 tubes with several in the color circuit.

looks like a really nice set. And as a bonus, the 23ExtraGarbagePicture22 has some life left in her yet!:yes:

looks like a really nice set. And as a bonus, the 23ExtraGarbagePicture22 has some life left in her yet!:yes:
It looks like it could be a Sylvania rebuilt. Too bad the resin is so yellow. :boring:

whats so bad about the CRT you guys talk about, I never had a Rectangular set before

The 23EGP22 was the first widely available rectangular color tube; Motorola worked with another company to have it designed on the cheap. The had a reputation for being short-lived. You can replace them with a more common type (25AP22, etc) but it takes some engineering. A number of other companies used that type in the mid 60s, by the way.

Those 25EGP22 CRTs were made by National Video Corp. of Chicago, IIRC.

National Video Corporation was nearly bankrupt and Motorola helped bail them out temporarily as Motorola was striving to manufacture a rectangular set to "put them out front" so to speak. They did but the quality output of NVC was far less than adequate from engineering, to having a clean facility to poor labor and management. My second job was with Modan Service here in Knoxville, Tn. and one of the owners was Charles Duncan who was a field representative for Motorola for over 15 years at that time. (1970) He told me the whole story of how Motorola and NVC teamed up but we think the real culprit was a very poor labor pool made up of mostly of unskilled help who basically knew nothing about the trade.

I worked at a picture tube rebuilding plant here in Knoxville after high school for several years and I understand the critical points of tube building esp the cleanliness part of it. Even the simplest parts can be the most critical in the quality of your product.

Building 23EGP22's was a major stepping stone that Motorola undertook when other manufacturers were still doing their homework. The 23EG's rarely lasted over 1-2 years and about 35% of them were replaced within 90 days in warranty right off the bat. About 2 or 3 years later Motorola started selling hardware kits to convert the 23's to a 25AP22 type tube. It took most of a day to do this conversion and we hated to do it as it was a real pain. The kits came out about a year later after the sets were sold for warranty and about a year after that were sold for conversions. Guess who was stuck with the chore of doing them??!! Yup, I became an expert of tube changing. By about 1970 most 23EG sets disappeared. I did love doing Zeniths (We did Zenith and Motorola only) as they were easy and I could do a mechanical change in about 15 minutes, let the set cook out for about 15 minutes and do convergence in about 3-5 minutes if there was no problem with the convergence board. About half of the time there would be a shorted rectifier or a burned pot on that board. I knew where every wire went on a Zenith and could have the whole chassis out in about 60 seconds and I was good! (Knobs first on the front bottom tray, then the four screws on the bottom, then pull the wires off and viol la, that was it-yank it.) For some reason I don't miss those days but we knew of nothing else and that was what you had to do to eat in those days!

Oh yeah, one more thing: 23EG's were never crisp or bright as they almost always looked "soft".

Maybe Zenith hired those same personnel when NVC closed their doors.
Zenith built CRT's, that were state of the art and flawless in performance and longevity.
What happened in the late 80's, to mid 90's, is any ones guess.
The Motorola I bought in December, 1965 and had the last ETS908 chassis, the 23EG lasted nine years. I've also seen some of them go for five years of heavy usage but that was rather rare. :scratch2:

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that Motorola made some later 23EGP22's themselves after the bad experience with NVC, and that they were much more reliable.

NVC did go bankrupt and out of business in I think 1969. I believe the 23EG was the only color tube they made. Supposedly their B&W's were still ok, but by the late 60's most OEM's had gone overseas for B&W and nobody wanted them to make color ones.

I really like the trivia/stories that come out sometimes. Thanks for sharing, Julian!

Julian could write at least one chapter for the book we should collectively publish; "when TV was big"

i will be picking up a motorola 23sf3 combo later today, i wonder if it has one of though's crt in it to.

Can anyone shed some light on post-EGP23 tubes used by Motorola? I was just reviewing a set of original Motorola paperwork from a set purchased May 9th, 1970. The chassis is R23TS-921-D04, and the model number is CU876ES. I found something interesting: on the factory schematic, the CRTs listed are 23FVP4 and 23DYP4.

It appears Motorola was no longer installing the 23EGP22 at this late date of tube TV production. Maybe Motorola ditched the 23EGP with the introduction of the TS915 series chassis in '67.

Any thoughts?

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that Motorola made some later 23EGP22's themselves after the bad experience with NVC, and that they were much more reliable.

NVC did go bankrupt and out of business in I think 1969. I believe the 23EG was the only color tube they made. Supposedly their B&W's were still ok, but by the late 60's most OEM's had gone overseas for B&W and nobody wanted them to make color ones.
NVC made a 23V type CRT in the later 60's. I scrapped a Late 60's Magnavox color set, that was fire damaged and only two years old. The CRT, tested perfect and was NVC sourced. I installed it in an Admiral set.
When Motorola started selling 23V sets, they were buying CRT's from Admiral and Westinghouse. They were using them in the lower-end models. The higher-end models, with the Drexel cabinets, usually used Sylvania CRT's.

Can anyone shed some light on post-EGP23 tubes used by Motorola? I was just reviewing a set of original Motorola paperwork from a set purchased May 9th, 1970. The chassis is R23TS-921-D04, and the model number is CU876ES. I found something interesting: on the factory schematic, the CRTs listed are 23FVP4 and 23DYP4.

It appears Motorola was no longer installing the 23EGP22 at this late date of tube TV production. Maybe Motorola ditched the 23EGP with the introduction of the TS915 series chassis in '67.

Any thoughts?

The set you have is a monochrome(black and white) set. The sets we are discussing are color.
CRTs that end in 'P22' are color, ones that end in 'P4' are monochrome. Monochrome rectangular tubes were first produced decades before color rectangular CRTs.

When the 23EGP22 entered production, Corning Glass, then the US source for CRT envelopes, did not yet offer a rectangular color envelope. National Video engineers built the 23EGP22 using what had been intended to be a black and white envelope.
The 2EGP22 offers strong proof of this fact in that its 2nd anode connector is at the side of the funnel, while the later rectangular color tubes have the 2nd anode connector at the top center of the CRT envelope's funnel.

Got it. Should have been more careful reading that schematic. I don't own the set, it was included in some bagged factory literature that I found together with a owner's manual for a 60s Motorola color set.

So that begs the question, when did 23EGP22 installation cease in Motorola's tube sets?

Thanks everyone!

The two tubes you list are B & W.

Got it. Should have been more careful reading that schematic. I don't own the set, it was included in some bagged factory literature that I found together with a owner's manual for a 60s Motorola color set.

So that begs the question, when did 23EGP22 installation cease in Motorola's tube sets?

Thanks everyone!

I would say, the 1967 model year. The other firms that used them, seemed to cease using them, at around the same time. :scratch2:

I got a question about that tube....

As a kid I picked up an Olympic set with that tube in it, I fixed it and used it in the patio for a few years, It had a weak tube, but watchable..... The tv was I believe a '66, '67, But the tube may date it differently.... Was this 23EGP22 sold to other tv companies like Olympic ? I know Olympic was most likely not a major brand at the time, and the chassis itself may bave been supplied by RCA for them to sell.... So also if RCA did not sell tv's with the 23EGP22, did they build a chassis for others to spec, which may have included designing for the use of this tube...? Or was the Olympic I had actually made by Motorola because it had the 23EGP22....? Do you guys know if this tube made the rounds to other tv brands besides Motorola, and Olympic.... Thanks.. Does anyone know if that tube responded to rejuvination attempts....?

I think Dad bought a 1968 Motorola 23" set. We liked it because it had a color indicator light above the tuner that came on when a color show was playing... Never mind the big giant 23" screen just to the left of this light...

Within a year, the CRT went bad. Motorola replaced it. Within about 7 months, the second tube failed. Again, Motorola replaced it. After about a year, the third tube failed. By then, Sylvania had a replacement available (and it cost more) so Dad went for it. Motorola refused to warranty replace the 3rd tube with a Sylvania, so dad paid for it, and informed the Motorola dealer that they had seen the last of his business.

We even got a big letter from Motorola Corporate over this, too, offering a big discount on one of the new Quasar sets with the works in a drawer.

The 4th tube survived. We kept the TV until 1975, when we got a 25" Magnavox with their first solid state chassis. It had it's own issues... a small arc that burned the PC board, but it ran flawlessly until 1981, when it got hit by lightning. We gave the Motorola to my grandparents, and it ran for years for them.

We had zero issues in all that time with the Motorola chassis.

I've seen only a couple of Motorola 23" sets in the past 40 years or so with a good Motorola branded CRT in them.

I got a question about that tube....

As a kid I picked up an Olympic set with that tube in it, I fixed it and used it in the patio for a few years, It had a weak tube, but watchable..... The tv was I believe a '66, '67, But the tube may date it differently.... Was this 23EGP22 sold to other tv companies like Olympic ? I know Olympic was most likely not a major brand at the time, and the chassis itself may bave been supplied by RCA for them to sell.... So also if RCA did not sell tv's with the 23EGP22, did they build a chassis for others to spec, which may have included designing for the use of this tube...? Or was the Olympic I had actually made by Motorola because it had the 23EGP22....? Do you guys know if this tube made the rounds to other tv brands besides Motorola, and Olympic.... Thanks.. Does anyone know if that tube responded to rejuvination attempts....?
According to the Sams field service guide, it shows the several firms used the 23EG. The sets that I have experience with using them was Muntz, Emerson, Westinghouse, Admiral and Packard-Bell.
It seems that everyone used them but, Sylvania, RCA and Zenith. :scratch2:

ok, Thank you ! !

I had done a conversion job on a Magnavox using a Motorola kit.

And I do seem to recall rebuilders staying away from them too.

I had done a conversion job on a Magnavox using a Motorola kit.

And I do seem to recall rebuilders staying away from them too.

I still have to convert a Motorola 23EG set to 23v type CRT. I bought a Motorola conversion kit on the E-place. Problem was, it was missing some of the parts I needed. I did come with the instructions and the paper mask template needed to alter the front bezel for the larger tube. :sigh:

If memory serves, I've seen a GE schematic with a 23EGP22. You can often tell sets that use this tube as it has a more rectangular shape than the 23v.

If memory serves, I've seen a GE schematic with a 23EGP22. You can often tell sets that use this tube as it has a more rectangular shape than the 23v.

Yes, that would be the CB23 chassis (also CB21 and CB25 versions) , before the KC of 1967.