http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Victorian-RCA-Victor-TV-Radio-Cabinet-1950s_W0QQitemZ5863972828QQcategoryZ73374QQrdZ1QQc mdZViewItem

I believe this was an 8TC271 "16" console, wood (mahogany), Queen Anne style"

I have the boring style of this set with the conventional cabinet, if I could I'd swap the guts into this cabinet!

Looks like the guts were removed by the original owner. it is truely ashame because people don't realize how nice these older radios sound. this honestly is a shame.

Jonathan, this was actually a TV, though it might have had a radio too.

This is the set I have, well not actually THIS set but one just like it.
I think it's the same innards that should be in that Queen Anne cabinet.

Just for fun I ran that $695.00 price in the picture through the inflation calculator:
What cost $695.00 in 1949 would cost $5333.63 in 2005. :yikes:
I guess this was a rather nice set in it's day.

Eric H,

Oh yeah, I remember seeing a TV like that. That is a cool looking set. It's a nice combination of a 20's looking cabinet and a 40's-50's looking TV circuitry. I hate how people rip put the electronics from cabinets. People fail to realize that even a b/w set from the 40s or 50s can look just as good as any modern set day. It really is a shame, but atleast the cabinet is there if anyone has from front panel and electronbics.

Jonathan

Though it's hard to really tell, I suspect that this TV set cabinet was gutted sometime in the early 70's (when the TV circuitry became defective and the owner didn't think it was worth getting it repaired). Set would have been about 15 years old then. But he wanted the cabinet obviously... Looks like he installed in it some plywood to create a back so he could store records or such in it.

Anyway I find it somewhat funny that some people wanted TVs in cabinets with doors to hide the CRT. Stealth TV? People didn't want an obvious TV set in the living room during a dinner party?

Did any TV manufacturer ever fit a power switch on the doors to shut the TV off when the doors were closed, and to turn it on when the doors were opened?

My grandma had an old RCA cabinet - much nicer and floor console with doors. It was gutted in the late 60's (?) when the TV crapped out for good, and became a bookcase. Back then, nobody thought a 50's vintage TV would be collectable...

I have an uncle with an early 70s GE console with doors. In the mid-80s he gutted it & custom fitted a 25" GE table set. (I think its one of those with the blue crt) That set now has some vertical defects but I don't think he wants to mess with trying to fix it. He will probably just buy a Flung Dung special down at Wal*Mart & swap it into the cabinet.

There is an outdoor fleamarket that I attend about once a year. For several years now one vendor has had the same gutted RCA cabinet. If it had the innards I'm sure it would be long gone. I would agree, though, that most of these were gutted many years ago.

I read somewhere that Robin Leach had tv sets all over his house, at least one per room, including at least one very early set. The article mentioned that every one of them was kept behind doors as he hated the look of a blank picture tube.