drh4683
11-22-2015, 10:32 PM
A nice snowstorm greeted Chicagoland this weekend, also marking it the very first snowfall for the season. The storm started Friday evening and continued into Saturday afternoon with near whiteout conditions at times. It wasn't going to stop me from hitting up some Saturday morning estate sales though!
So I stopped at a local sale and walked into another one of those time capsule houses and sitting in the living room was a nice looking 1966 Motorola color set in the French Provincial cabinet. It was half off day and $10.00 finalized the deal. This was another one of those situations where the TV was bought brand new at the time the original owners moved into their then brand new home. I assumed the set was probably still plugged in with an outdoor antenna still attached, but after peeking behind the set, this wasn't the case... I saw the power cord was neatly wrapped up and hanging with a piece of wire on the back cover and no antenna leads in sight. However, it was obvious that this TV was sitting in this spot for years because of the undisturbed dust. Typically a "disconnected" vintage TV still surviving in a living room means something is wrong and the set was simply taken out of service but remained as furniture. So I decided not to plug it in and that I'd wait to see what it would do until I got back home. I was happy to see the "Certified Service" tag still on back with a delivery and set up date of 12-2-1966. The Certified Service tags were typical on sets bought new at Polk Brothers department stores in Chicago and they were a huge retailer here for Admiral, Motorola and Zenith products.
I wanted to bring the set home today where I wouldn't have to deal with the snowfall, but that wasn't an option. All sales had to be completed Saturday, so that left me no choice but to transport the set home in the snow. I was able to get some plastic sheeting and wrapped the the set completely down to and around the bottoms of the feet so the legs couldn't wick up any water when sitting in back of my truck. A gentleman at the sale offered to help me load it up and tipped him for his help. Its always easier to get a 2nd hand when it comes to moving these sets than fumble around with the appliance dolly and tip the sets on all sorts of angles.
Once I got home, I safely unloaded it and got it in the garage without a drop of water or snow touching it. Today was the day I'd see what this set was all about. The back cover looked undisturbed. I powered it up and to my amazement I am greeted with what was essentially a perfect color picture without touching a thing. The CRT is bright and razor sharp even though it has a little bit of bubbly cataracts. It's certainly a low hour set. So I popped the back cover off to take a look inside. Once I looked inside, it was immediately apparent that this set was NEVER used and it was never serviced. The TS-918 chassis is like the day it left Franklin Park when it was built in October, 1966. All original tubes, just a slight bit of dust which was almost nothing considering it's been almost 50 years... Wires were all clean and tack free, all labels and tags still bright and clean as well and a bright shiny high voltage cage. This CRT is the original EIA-836 code making it a National Video Corp made tube for Motorola with a matching October, 1966 date code. This was the infamous "bad tube" but this one is basically perfect. So it leads me to wonder why this TV was never used? Either they watched TV somewhere else, didn't watch TV at all, or perhaps Mr and Mrs. Dombek (the original owners) were frightened by the color TV x-ray scare scam that hit the news around 1967 and they never felt comfortable to touch this TV ever again? Nobody knows. Unfortunately Mr and Mrs. Dombek have both passed away. Mrs. Dombek was a widower for the last 30 years and passed away at age 92. Their old Motorola TV will live on though.
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So I stopped at a local sale and walked into another one of those time capsule houses and sitting in the living room was a nice looking 1966 Motorola color set in the French Provincial cabinet. It was half off day and $10.00 finalized the deal. This was another one of those situations where the TV was bought brand new at the time the original owners moved into their then brand new home. I assumed the set was probably still plugged in with an outdoor antenna still attached, but after peeking behind the set, this wasn't the case... I saw the power cord was neatly wrapped up and hanging with a piece of wire on the back cover and no antenna leads in sight. However, it was obvious that this TV was sitting in this spot for years because of the undisturbed dust. Typically a "disconnected" vintage TV still surviving in a living room means something is wrong and the set was simply taken out of service but remained as furniture. So I decided not to plug it in and that I'd wait to see what it would do until I got back home. I was happy to see the "Certified Service" tag still on back with a delivery and set up date of 12-2-1966. The Certified Service tags were typical on sets bought new at Polk Brothers department stores in Chicago and they were a huge retailer here for Admiral, Motorola and Zenith products.
I wanted to bring the set home today where I wouldn't have to deal with the snowfall, but that wasn't an option. All sales had to be completed Saturday, so that left me no choice but to transport the set home in the snow. I was able to get some plastic sheeting and wrapped the the set completely down to and around the bottoms of the feet so the legs couldn't wick up any water when sitting in back of my truck. A gentleman at the sale offered to help me load it up and tipped him for his help. Its always easier to get a 2nd hand when it comes to moving these sets than fumble around with the appliance dolly and tip the sets on all sorts of angles.
Once I got home, I safely unloaded it and got it in the garage without a drop of water or snow touching it. Today was the day I'd see what this set was all about. The back cover looked undisturbed. I powered it up and to my amazement I am greeted with what was essentially a perfect color picture without touching a thing. The CRT is bright and razor sharp even though it has a little bit of bubbly cataracts. It's certainly a low hour set. So I popped the back cover off to take a look inside. Once I looked inside, it was immediately apparent that this set was NEVER used and it was never serviced. The TS-918 chassis is like the day it left Franklin Park when it was built in October, 1966. All original tubes, just a slight bit of dust which was almost nothing considering it's been almost 50 years... Wires were all clean and tack free, all labels and tags still bright and clean as well and a bright shiny high voltage cage. This CRT is the original EIA-836 code making it a National Video Corp made tube for Motorola with a matching October, 1966 date code. This was the infamous "bad tube" but this one is basically perfect. So it leads me to wonder why this TV was never used? Either they watched TV somewhere else, didn't watch TV at all, or perhaps Mr and Mrs. Dombek (the original owners) were frightened by the color TV x-ray scare scam that hit the news around 1967 and they never felt comfortable to touch this TV ever again? Nobody knows. Unfortunately Mr and Mrs. Dombek have both passed away. Mrs. Dombek was a widower for the last 30 years and passed away at age 92. Their old Motorola TV will live on though.
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5781/22602702453_a86ae6697b_h.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/ArjKYr)DSC04768 (https://flic.kr/p/ArjKYr) by drh4683 (https://www.flickr.com/photos/135332734@N02/), on Flickr
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