Today I was driving through my grandmother's neighborhood. I always make it a point to look through every street for anything. It's an older neighborhood, and she was the second person to live on her street (That was 1951), with the rest of the houses coming up around 1953, and I think the last one was built around 1964/1965 (based on what my mother has told me). Simple, two or three bedroom traditional style houses. Back to the point of the thread - I originally saw the set as my family and I were driving to her house on Christmas day, and was unable to get a photo of it. Today, I was able to catch a break in rain showers and caught a picture of it at dusk. (It was sitting in a pile of 10-15 year old silver plastic sets, leading me to believe that someone took advantage of Christmas sales and got all new flat screens, throwing out all of their current sets and mom's old TV that's been in the basement)The ground was too soggy to try to get out and examine it closer. What breaks my heart is that for years I've been scouring the neighborhood for anything, and the time I find something, it's been sitting in record rainfall for a week. The first time I finally have a chance at something, right around the corner from me, the homeowner decided the time to set it out was the day that we got 13" of rain in 17 hours. Ugh, the luck I have.
Onto the set -
I was only able to get one photo of it as I was driving along. On any other occasion, I would have pulled aside and gone over the set, taking pictures. Today, I had to get home before it started to rain again, and before dark. Someone also was coming up behind me, so I couldn't stay to long. My guess is that the set is an RCA from around 1968-1972. The screen was either 17" or 19". It's hard to tell in the picture, but the UHF was a vertical line, with a red bar to tune (Like a radio dial), and the control panel had four big knobs, which I assume would be on/off, volume, UHF and VHF. In the picture you can see a small panel popped open on the front. It had a medium sized knob in the middle, and four tiny ones in each corner. These are almost certainly color controls.
- Without further ado, and feel free to share guesses/conformations -

Several Years ago I remember when I was still in high school, one of the neighbors across the road from my parents house threw out to the curb two vintage color Consoles one of them was a Curtis Mathis TV with metal heat sensitive buttons for the TV, and the other was I believe a Magnavox or something like that both were from the 1970s I believe and I tried hauling them over to my parents place to see what was wrong with them and the Curtis Mathis had an issue with the buttons not responding anymore and the Magnavox I never got to because my parents came home before I could get to it and they didn't like the idea of me picking those TVs up from the neighbors trash so I had to haul it back over to their trash where they sat for about two weeks before they were finally hauled off by the garbage man to the landfill and they got rained on several times in between.

It is a late 60's Admiral tube color. A rare set to begin with, but if it is a console under 23", square that rarity factor.

Rain schmain! Water does NOT damage electronics.....I could take my powered off laptop or one of my tube TVs throw it in the lake now, fish it out in a week or two, let it dry for a couple of more weeks, and power it on to see it work as good as before I submerged it.....I've fixed sets that spent YEARS outside.....
GO GET IT(!) before the wood gets too warped/delaminated to be presentable, and let it dry in a garage or basement for a couple of weeks, and it should be just as fine as if it was never outside....AT LEAST SAVE the CRT and CHASSIS those parts ain't made anymore, and if the CRT is good it alone is worth at least $100.

Also, if it helps, the set had a black/dark brown triangular CRT neck cap.

That Admiral was likely made before they started mounting tubes on PCBs, so worth grabbing in my opinion.

I have no space for it, or the time to properly restore it. Is it a particularly rare set, with a new/novelty feature on it? I really can't take it, but does anybody need a specific part off of it? I hate to let it sit there and deteriorate, or worse be the victim of some bored teenagers who vandalize it. I really don't want to let it sit out there until the city requires them to take it to the electronics recycle, as the dump doesn't take TV's anymore. I wish someone on here would grab it, but it seems I'm the only one here in the state (Save TUDI, on the other side of it) It looks like that will be the fate of it however...

I don't see a cataract, unusual for a color set that age. Also, a good fly would be worth something to some here.

It may be a remote set. You might have $200 sitting there between the CRT and flyback. Every electronic part on that except for the capacitors could potentially be reused. Tube color sets are not easy to come by in many parts of the south, this will probably be your only/best chance to own one like that. It is not hard to make room for a small console like that....You could set a board on top and make it a staging table next to your service bench. Odds are about 8 lytics, maybe a dozen tubular caps and some adjustments are all it needs to work if it don't still work as is.

That Admiral was likely made before they started mounting tubes on PCBs, so worth grabbing in my opinion.

Admiral had tubes on PC boards from the very begining.
The set shown is probably an H12. Their PC boards were never a big problem. :thmbsp:

Admiral had tubes on PC boards from the very begining.
The set shown is probably an H12. Their PC boards were never a big problem. :thmbsp:
Oh snap. Oh well, they can't be as bad as the compactron-cooked K20 I had. The more I dug into that, the more problems I found.

It is a late 60's Admiral tube color. A rare set to begin with, but if it is a console under 23", square that rarity factor.

Rain schmain! Water does NOT damage electronics.....I could take my powered off laptop or one of my tube TVs throw it in the lake now, fish it out in a week or two, let it dry for a couple of more weeks, and power it on to see it work as good as before I submerged it.....I've fixed sets that spent YEARS outside.....
GO GET IT(!) before the wood gets too warped/delaminated to be presentable, and let it dry in a garage or basement for a couple of weeks, and it should be just as fine as if it was never outside....AT LEAST SAVE the CRT and CHASSIS those parts ain't made anymore, and if the CRT is good it alone is worth at least $100.

Agree with the above. What's the point of scouting for them if you find one and do nothing? I've hosed sets off before using them. Just give them a few weeks to dry, or an hour in the sun if you lived in Phoenix. That's actually a pretty good looking set.

If I had seen this set sitting on the curb, I would cram it in my LeSabre right then and there. And if that didn't work, I swear I would carry it home on my shoulders...

If I had seen this set sitting on the curb, I would cram it in my LeSabre right then and there. And if that didn't work, I swear I would carry it home on my shoulders...
About the same here...Though I'm fairly sure I could tie anything short of a TV/stereo combo console into the trunk of my 78 Linkn (that son of a gun can practically close it's trunk with a stereo only console in there !)....I could probably get a combo on the roof or on top of the closed trunk (like a deer :D ) with help.

Your in the same state as him....Why not ask him to drag it into his garage for you and plan a road trip to pick it up?....

Because if it turns out that I can't fit it in the LeSabre, Mobile to Birmngham is a long way to carry this thing.

I agree with Electronic M, dieseljeep, Carmine. I hope someone got that Admiral. I have one like it (the TV portion), mine is in a Danish modern Style Combo cabinet with record changer and AM FM Stereo, it's the only combo I own!

Because if it turns out that I can't fit it in the LeSabre, Mobile to Birmngham is a long way to carry this thing.

Get some measurements. And if it don't fit, pull the chassis and CRT (which are 75% of the weight), put them in the back seat, and tie the empty cabinet to the roof with a blanket between it and the roof to prevent scratches and dents.

But seriously, at this point in time, what are the odds that the set hasn't been stripped by copper collectors, necked, totally ruined by weather or hauled off to the dump?

jr