Today I got at a garage sale for free (end of the day special it's gettin' tossed otherwise) a small Magnavox color TV made in USA in April 1982 in Greeneville TN. Model 13c201. Manual tuning, it needs a cleaning. Also the brightness contrast tint and chroma pots need a cleaning as well. Works fine other than that. Did Philips own the Magnavox nameplate in 1982, or did Magnavox exist as a separate company then?

Philips bought Magnavox, Sylvania and Philco in one giant swoop in 1974, so you've got a Philips.

I believe that Motorola also sold their TV business to the Japanese in 1974. If the above and what I remember is true, a lot of the US TV manufacturers were gone after that year.

yup.... I think Zenith & RCA were the last 2 hold-outs. Altho both used parts assembled in Mexico as early as the late 70's, but were still assembled in the US. I know most of the Solid State Curtis Mathes were made by NEC. My grandpa hated Curtes Mathes in the era of "Expensive and darn well worth it". He said the price was jacked up to support the warranty. Brilliant ad campaign tho.

Here is an interesting story on the corporate history of Philco-Ford (the story is at the bottom of the page)

http://www.hammar.dyndns.org/radio.htm

Also, only the consumer products division of Magnavox was sold to Philips. The orginal company continued as a govt. contractor in Fort Wayne, still using the original upper and lower case Magnavox logo, until 1995, when it was purchased by Hughes Aircraft.
(reference: http://www.answers.com/topic/hughes-aircraft )

A pre-Philips Sylvania will read "GTE Sylvania" as will a GTE Philco. Don't run across many GTE Philco's but I have seen them, most recently a big combo console with varactor tuning. I know of a couple decent Philips Philco sets from the 80s.

GTE must have owned Sylvania for a fairly long time...on a 1960's Sylvania B/W set I have there is the "General System" logo with an image of a telephone. This is not on the front panel but on the rear and circuit boards. The automatic color system on some of the old Syl. color sets was called "GT-Matic". I guess GTE now either changed names to or was bought by Verizon?

Our store sold the GTE Philco's as a secondary brand. (For those who couldn't afford Zenith) They were actually pretty good sets. They were the exact same as a Sylvania but had less features or maybe not the newest bells and whistles that were on the Sylvania's of that year. They were certainly a step above the GE's we sold for a short while. Those suckers were DOGS!

Yes, GTE was acquired by Verizon a few years back. We have a good friend who's with what used to be GTE here in MA. She doesn't tell happy stories of what life is like for them nowadays.

I think the Magnavox sell out to Philips was a little later than 1974. I was working for a Magnavox dealer as late as December 1979 and it was still the same old Magnavox company. IIRC the last real Magnavox color chassis was the T995 that came out later in the 70's. The 995 was the last color chassis to use the old numbering system before the buyout, it was a modular set with a vertical chassis that would tilt back for access to the boards, at the same time the lower price chassis was the T991 and it was used mainly in the 19 inch sets and a few of the cheaper 25's. Of course I'm relying on 30+ year old memories......

From Philips itself:

Philips established PolyGram in 1972, and acquired Magnavox (1974) and Signetics (1975) in the United States. Acquisitions in the 1980s included the television business of GTE Sylvania (1981) and the lamps business of Westinghouse (1983).

I stand corrected....Apparently Philips left Magnavox pretty much intact until their takeover of Sylvania '81. After that I suppose was when we got the Magnaphilania sets where the only difference is the name on the front.....

When did production move to TN? Did Philips do that, & if so, did they do it when they bought Magnavox or later when they bought Syl/Phl?

We had a very late 70's or early 80's Magnavox console radio/phono with 8-track in for repair and it had the modern all caps MAGNAVOX logo...however the maker's plate on the back says Magnavox, Fort Wayne, Indiana. Seems like Magnavox mostly got out of the radio/stereo business on the move to Tennessee...that probably happened in the early 80's. The Tennessee built Magnavox TV's seem to be pretty high quality, never saw a catastrophic failure like a CRT or flyback.

I bought a new 1988 Sylvania 27 incher (first real tv I bought all by myself) made in Tennesee that still had a like-new picture when I gave it to my sister 16 years later. Was used just about daily, that was one hell of a quality set and never needed squat in repairs or adjustment. Now my house is full of 40 and 50 year old tvs!