What does collecting old tv's mean to young people?
 

Here's an interesting question. A good share of those who frequent this site either grew up in the era or were involved in the business. I grew up when color tv was just a novelty, but I thought it was the most amazing thing out there.

So what drives you young guys to pursue collecting these old dinosaurs?

Preservation of history (I also enjoy WWII stuff), and who doesn't like toobs?

We NEVER had a Roundie when I was a Tadpole, but I knew how SPECIAL they were....Still think so !

I almost believe me and Tom (Electronic M) are the youngest members here that are so involved with old televisions like this.

I'm 29, and I was born in 1986. My earliest memories are of that Zenith Television I still have, and use this day. Unusually my memory began to retain stuff as early as Late 1987, according to mom when I described what I remember to her.

I grew up in front of a television. I used to remember looking forward to getting home to play Nintendo on my little 13" Sony Trinitron. I still have that set to this day.

I feel older tech, while regarded as "primitive" now, is better built then anything you can walk out and purchase now from (Big box store of choice), and nothing lasts like it used too. Craftsmanship is gone, quality is gone. Nothing feels quite like watching an old CRT television, the bright colors, the smooth image, the easy to understand functions, that reflection of the glass screen when lights are near.

Yeah, you can go out to (big box store) and buy a 32" TV for almost under $200 now from some Asian company no one has ever heard of, and it'll last you two or three years.

I remember when a 32" Sony cost upwards of a grand plus for the better models, and many of those are still working to this day.

Getting off topic.

I found my way in to antique television when I was a kid. I always liked vacuum tube radios, and I had a few when I was 14/15, and then I learned TV's had tubes too! It went from there. I just love antique televisions. I want to preserve them, and enjoy them, and let them stand as a testament to a lost piece of history.

All my "cool kids" friends can watch their HDTV LED flat monstrosities at their home, then they come visit me in my home and they're totally blown away by my old televisions, and most have never even SEEN a television as old as mine are, and they sit down, with excitement, and watch my vintage sets in total awe. I put on some classic Star Trek or something, and it's all smiles, and "wow this is the coolest thing!", and they watch with out ever thinking twice that they're looking in to a 50+ year old screen.

Nothing, and I do mean NOTHING compares to watching classic TV, on a classic TV set.

I get a real delight from the smiles my old TV's bring when people see them, and watch them for the first time. I get endless enjoyment from them, my self. I always like to sit back and watch my color roundy, even with the vertical issues, I still enjoy it

1. I like to do what almost no one else does because following trends is boring to me.
2. I've had an interest in electronics since I was a kid.
3. Before the internet, most of my spare time was spent in front of a TV.
4. I grew up around people who didn't have the latest of everything, so it's a nostalgia trip to use stuff about my age or older.
5. I appreciate the quality and styling from my chosen time period enough to surround myself with items from that time for an authentic feel.

I'm not much older then Arcanine. For me, collecting old stuff, including TV's serves a few purposes:

1: A bit of nostalga, though I'm not one to indulge much in that.

2: Older TV's, older electronics, they worked different, they looked different, and they were built different. TV's are a prime example. With new flat panel sets, something is lost. The picture is better, the sound? From what I've heard not so much. They're fragile, especially the screens, they aren't built as well, and there's less substance, less variety. Swap the brand labels and it'd be hard to tell who made what.

3: Every piece of old electronics I find or receive is a history lesson in and of itself. Everything from a BPC set, to that 50 year old tube TV I found a few months ago has a story to tell about its life.

And 4: I wouldn't have much of what I own today if it wasn't for collecting old electronics. Much of what I own has been found and often repaired.

"Young man, back in my day, TVs were black and white".. And there was no cable... :D

And you had to wait for picture AND sound to come up. First it would be the sound, followed by the picture appearing very dim and large, and as the set warmed up it would shrink and become brighter.

And you had only three channels to watch back then, one which only came in on a good day, and if the President was making a speech, all three channels would be covering it and nothing else would be on!

And back in your day you had to listen to your parents tell you about how they walked 20 miles to school, barefoot in the snow...

When I was growing up my mother didn't have a television for quite some time. We were very poor and rented rooms of our house out to other people. One of the people who stayed with us had a tiny portable B&W television. I used to watch Peter Davidson as Doctor Who until the wee hours of the night on that TV. TV was fascinating to me back then. As I got older it became commonplace and boring. I think a small part of me collects to make TVs fascinating and special again. As Nick said preservation of history is also a factor and I love telling the story of television from the 1878 illustration of "Edison's Telephonoscope" all the way through to television's eventual ubiquity in America's living room. The very best part about this hobby, and the thing that keeps me hooked, is the community. The eagerness to help, the generosity, the patience and skill to talk a complete beginner with zero knowledge of electronics through a restoration of a tube based television, it truly makes this hobby so special.

Oh and yea I'm with Nick...who doesn't like tubes?

I think I can take the title for youngest enthusiast here (I'm 16). My oldest set now is from 1981, but I really do want some tube stuff. What draws me to vintage televisions is that they were so special to the people that owned them. These were people who survived the depression, and spending $1000s of dollars in today's money on them. They were so well built, and taken care of for that matter. The kids I go to school with are all so spoiled, and have to have the latest gadgets. I actually heard one child at lunch telling his friends how he was going to "accidentally" drop his year old Iphone in a sewer drain so his parents would buy him the newest one. Back to televisions - It is magical to me to walk to the front of a big wooden box to click a knob, and hearing it warm up, make noises, and suddenly throw thousands of tiny dots onto a piece of glass. Today, you press a button on a remote, and a flat black rectangle on the wall instantly shows harsh, too bright images. The sounds are different too. Tube audio is so warm, friendly, and inviting, I could listen to it for hours. Flat screen's sound is so dull and irritating. The old sets themselves are better, better made, better sounding, the colors are warm and pleasant. The same goes for vinyl records, they sound so good and alive compared to flat, boring MP3 files. They have more emotion, it gets in your bones. I don't have memories of walking into TV dealerships, or having the 1st color set, but the TVs carry nostalgia. They make me have those memories. It's an entirely different world these days, and I don't like it. I'm severely jealous of all of you guys who were around back then. My whole life has been, and will be, dedicated to keeping that lost old world alive. The clothes I wear, the things I own, the car I drive, the music I listen to, and the way I talk. I see all these dogtanking hipsters who destroy and deface old tvs and console stereos, and it makes me furious. I know I'm certainly a minority in my age group, if not the only one. I want to get all of these things, tvs and stereos and such, to save them from those people. I don't currently own a set too old, but I'm certainly trying. I don't know a thing about electronics, but I'll certainly learn so I can keep these things alive.

I agree 100% with everything LovesZenith said above. I'll be 17 in less than a week, and I just love old stuff. I'm in Birmingham, AL, so there are quite a few good thrift stores and flea malls to find old electronics.

Your post made me smile. Happy that you can find good stuff where you are! I grew up in the 50s and 60s, and used to drive my parents nuts when ever I brought home another "piece of junk". Now driving my wife crazy LOL. I progressed from AA5s, and now really enjoy TV restoration (positively love early color!),and especially vintage audio.
Best of luck in the enjoyment of your passion, and don't let anyone discourage you! :thmbsp:
Kevin
p.s. Hard as it may be, try not to become a hoarder. :D

At 43, I'm out of the real "youngster" crowd now, but most of what I have is older than me. Tubes have always been a fascination for me. We didn't have a solid state TV in the house until the early 80s so I had plenty of chance to stare at those glowing bulbs through the back of a couple old GE sets. On the other hand, the only tube radios I'd seen were beautiful but didn't work. When I found a working AA5, it was just magic. I've been hooked ever since.

I get the same feeling from restoring a tv and seeing a picture come up nice and clear, as when i get a classic car to sputter back to life after decades of sleeping. Theyre not "junk" anymore, they have a purpose again.

I dont know why i love to repair old things. I just do. Its cool, its history, with a bit of help it can be working history again. Plus, what else do i have to do in my spare time BUT play with old junk? ;)

Guys, I feel like there will be a small, but DETERMINED bunch of enthusiasts who would THANK us from, say, the year 2115, that WE took the time & trouble to "Restore" a bunch of these old things... Been a history buff all my life, & getting to "Save" a little of it, figures in BIG w/me... Also takes me back.. When I was growing up, "Happiness" was curled up in my Mama's lap, watching the "Huntley/Brinkley Report". I THINK we had a big old Zenith, & it put out quite a bit of heat.. That good, warm "Homey" smell that comes only from Tooob stuff. That was B4 LBJ's "Great Society", we ended up getting a 1st rate cable TV system early on, as we were "Disadvantaged", & the Gummint thought getting a cable TV system, would lift us out of the isolation, & backwardness that was endemic around here.

That may be truer than you think. What many people don't realize is that we here have been internet "pioneers". One day everything we talk about today might be used as a guide to future generations of VK members. And there will be people joining this site long after we're all gone....oddly enough.

I'm not gonna lie. I drove my mom nuts when I was kid, hauling home peoples toss out TV's and playing with them.

I was over joyed when I found this site. I thought "Oh my god! Like minded people who collect TELEVISIONS! THEY COLLECT FIX AND RESTORE OLD CRT TV'S! OH MY GOD THEY EVEN HAVE A SECTION FOR PORTABLE LITTLE TV'S! oh look, they have a section for vintage color sets. I always wanted a vintage color that worked!"

I'm 25. By the time I was 8 years old I became enamored with vintage radios. I blame my grandparents Depression era radio stories, dad telling me he had the first color TV on his street, and Ken Burns' Empire of The Air for that. By age 10 I had 20 tube radios ranging from the 1930's to 1960's that neighbors gave me, and my parents bought during our trips to the local antique malls. By age 12 I learned to solder and do basic troubleshooting using what I learned from the internet (Phils Old Radios). Since most of what I collected were basic AA5 radios, I got pretty good at recapping. That same year I flipped from radios to tube HiFi (I was getting into classic rock and Jazz) and fell in with a couple of guys who ran a vintage audio shop in Lakewood, OH that no longer exists. They sold my dad a restored Fisher 500B for $120 as a Christmas present, to get me into the hobby. That Fisher gave way to ever more complex tube hifi setups that evolved into the McIntosh/Leak/Altec system I run today. I bought my first vintage TV, a 1956 Zenith Bugeye, at an antique mall in Columbus, OH in 2007 with lawn mowing money. I recapped the set and it worked well, and later a fellow VK member sent me a new CRT for it some years later. College came, I got my first tube color set, a 1966 Zenith in 2011, and I still use it to this day. Now I own a recording studio that uses vintage analog audio equipment wherever possible, in a building filled with my collection of vintage TV's and Radios.

Basically, my attraction to vintage electronics is rooted in the fact that they were something totally different, that I never actually got to experience growing up in the 1990's and early 2K's. Tube electronics felt more real to me. Also the history- That we, as a nation, were able to do so much with technology that everyone today sees as completely archaic. The brilliant industrial design was also a factor. Seeing beautiful old radios and TV's when I was surrounded in a sea of black plastic electronics pulled me in.

I'm 48 and remember when, in the late '70's-early '80's when TV collecting was a very limited area of the radio collecting hobby. Period magazine articles on the subject would often start out with something like "people collect old barbed-wire, door-knobs.....so why not old televisions..." referring to it as being pretty odd. I personally was blown-away by the look of vintage TV's at the time, but focused on radios because of how odd it seemed to actually purchase an old TV. It took well into the '90's, when TV collecting got more wide-spread, before I finally started to collect what I liked the most.
I see vintage TV's as the closest thing to time-travel as you an you find, and everyone loves the idea of time-travel. Having an early dusty "as-found" TV restored, and the first time watching a period show on it, is a total thrill for me. All these years later, it has never gotten old.

Here goes! I'm 67 and my Dad worked at the Glenn L. Martin company for a good part of his life. As you may know, defense work if often at the whim of the current ellected officials. So you could have a great job for years and get laid off in a New York minute.

He dabbled in a little TV and radio repair. I watched him but didn't really understand exactly what he did. I did become interested and when I went into the army, I got formal electronics training. Solid state electronics was the hot new stuff so I was all into it. Vacuum tubes went by the way of the buggy whip. Also, when the rectangular color CRT came out, I had no use for the round screen. Heck, we had gotten rid round BW CRT years ago!

For years, I loved the newest stuff but could only afford very little due to my modest income and lifestyle. 15 years, ago, I discovered eBay and the ability to obtain items that were memories from the past. I found out that those old ancient looking round CRTs were rather cool. I got an RCA CTC-9 and have started a restoration. It is still on hold due to some family issues (nothing bad, just time consuming) and look forward to completing it. It has a raster so that's a good sign.

I should mention that after getting out of the army, I built a Heathkit console TV. All transistors of course. That got my interest in the TV part of electronics. I guess I have had a renaissance because I really like the older stuff. Yes, I do have surround sound and a 60" LCD set. But watching Broderick Crawford in "Highway Patrol" (2150 to Headqarters!") on my Admiral 26R12 Bakelite console.

The Admiral is the exact model that I had as a teenager. It's restored and has an NOS CRT. I also have the first color set that Dad got when I was in high school, 1967. That too is in queue. I guess I should stop rambling on; the coffee has not kicked in yet ;).

So, I understand the process and also hope our younger "Whipper Snappers" will carry on. It really is nice to bring an old set back to life. You can even transmit to your vinatage set from your set top box or DVD player and watch those old shows. Cool...

I'm 32. I started collecting radios first when I was 12. My dad and I went to a few garage sales one day. At one of the sales, there was about 4 tube radios. I fell in love and was hooked ever since. I bought all that they had and that started my collection. Several years later, once I was 16, I was at an antique store and found a Philco TV. Guess what, it came home with me.

I don't have much experience working on them. I'm at a point where I need to work on them and not collect anymore.

Another thing-Radio collecting can be one of the few areas where a person of MODEST means can STILL build himself an impressive collection of things that were & are considered "The Best there is..." I am, of course, referring to the Collins designed R-390 series.

Love your comment. It's all true! You sound much older. Kicken A!

I'm 69, not the oldest here. My mother showed me the damage to her feet from frostbite walking long distances in the snow to work. Her parents pulled her out of sixth grade school to help the large family during the depression.

Fast forward to the early fifties when I went to school. We had no school buses and yes I walked though snowstorms and snow drifts to get to school.

Yup, we had three channels and later one UHF channel. For Milwaukee folks it was channels 4, 6, 12 and 18, NBC, ABC, CBS and the independent.

When I was a kid, on Saturdays, had the entire morning planned out in front of the tube. First, cartoons like Roadrunner, then Hop Along Cassidy, then Fury, then Sky King, topping the morning off with Mr. Wizard. Just fascinated by the glow of tubes behind the vents and the little dot that faded out when the set was turned off.

And when I saw color tv for the first time in 1956 .... Don't even get me started. I will just say it was magical.

I've been on the 'net since 1987, before the web was invented. Back then it was a UNIX test based system. Usenews forums were what we used. All text, no pictures. rec.antiques.radio+phono was the equivalent to videokarma in the day. Just being able to participate in a world wide forum, at no cost beyond a fixed monthly fee from an ISP, was great. You didn't have to pass thru a filter, like a magazine editor. Except for moderated groups, of course.

I'm 52 and by age 8, was plugging in stuff found in farmhouse attics, basements and barns of many family members. I often recall waiting until I got sound on a TV, then chickening out before anything scary happened. Pretty soon I had a reputation for getting stuff to work, leading to many gifts of appliances, radios and by age 12, TV sets. After learning that a few new capacitors would KEEP stuff working (more than 5 minutes), it was downhill from there.

Fortunately, we had a house with a huge daylight basement and my parents understood a need for a hobby for a kid who was lousy at sports, with no other talent but accident-free tinkering. It was cold in the winter, often I pulled chassis out and slid many a color console set up two flights of carpeted stairs to my room, never breaking a CRT in the process. Its funny how much care can be taken and brute strength you can muster saving old technology. I also was on the roof often trying to get the perfect array of aluminum to work in an awful location surrounded by densely-wooded hills. Digital has renewed this interest in antennas and Dx'ing with a vengeance.

As a high schooler in Electronics Vo-Tech, I learned to tackle early color set issues using B&K 1077B television analyst, then I was VERY fortunate to work under some senior techs who learned electronics in the service, came home and then made TV repair their business. As they retired, I became a curator of test equipment and parts, mostly tubes:)

If I ever meet anyone in my area who likes old radios and TV and is younger, they can have plenty of my stuff - free, to pass it along as was done years ago. We do our best work here by matching spare parts with sets in need, and sets in need of homes with new owners:)

Did you live in the Pittsburgh area all your life? If so, most likely you watched Dr. Who on WQEX, channel 16, it was the low cost sister station to WQED, channel 13. IIRC, they broadcasted in black and white well into the 1980's. They used to show a lot of the "Brit-Coms" and British Sci-Fi. I remember one night I heard Mom laughing so hard and wonder why. I walked out and saw her watching "Red Dwarf" on Channel 16 and got me hooked.

I lived in the Pittsburgh area until I lose the house form the death of my mother two years ago although I moved in August of 2014, I'm still close by in Ohio, just north of Wheeling, WV.

I'm 49, always been interested in electronics and radio as well as old TV. The oldest TV I remember was our B&W 1959 Philco with no UHF tuner. I remember sitting with Mom watching the Moon landings and Christmas cartoons and shows. In Pittsburgh, we could get channels 2, 4, 11, 13, 16 and 53, later we had 22. We could get channel 7 from Wheeling, channel 9 from Steubenville, channel 6 from Johnstown, and 21, 27 and 33 from Youngstown. I'm glad to see the millennials here and around taking up the torch for us, sadly, we will not live forever but I'm glad there will be custodians of history in the future.

I got into collecting old radios and TV sets back when I was a young teenager. When I was in college, I ran a TV sales and repair business out of my apartment. Most of the sets I worked on were from the CTC-10 through CTC-40 era. I've always had a warm spot in my heart for color roundies, probably because of the great memories I had in college.

I have, what is undoubtedly, the 1st TV in town. Its my unassuming 1948 7" Admiral "1911A11" bakelite set. The old guy who owned the theater in town had it, he also ran a shop where he fixed radios, & his daughter ran the theater for YEARS after his death. My Uncle told me that he had a place fixed up on a hill outside of town, w/AC power, & an antenna, & during the summer months, he'd tote the Admiral up there, & he & his buddies would try to pick up WSB or WAGA out of Atlanta, & catch a baseball game on it. I never got an Atlanta station up there, but, I picked up everything else.. At least 2 or 3 network feeds, a BUNCH of PBS stations, & all kinds of indie UHF stuff. I took a JVC CX-500 US "All-in-Wonder" 4.5" color set up there a BUNCH of times.

I'm 40 and used to collect all sorts of things: vintage computers, vintage radios, cameras, records, audio processors, and film projectors and prints. I read this site because I really am not in a position to start collecting vintage televisions. As my dear wife so eloquently put it a number of years ago: "You really need to choose one thing to collect or things are really going to get out of control" She was right. I sold most of the computers except one (Apple Lisa), and sold a lot of my cameras, and sold my vintage radios (except one a Zenith 8S463) and chose focus collecting my projectors and prints. It really made my hobby fun as having so many other things just distracted from one another. I like "collecting" televisions virtually through the discussions on this site and in real life am building a cinema on my property to someday install the projectors and platters and audio racks and have my own place to watch my films.

No kidding. I had to get my Electrohome console out through a sliding door, onto my convertible hand truck without scratching it, then up a rather tricky set of steps that curve around the house (fortunately I had a spotter to give it a boost over each step), then I pushed it 1.24 kilometers (about 3/4 of a mile) home. At least that's the shortest distance I've traveled to bring home a set.

Try wrestling a 60 inch rear projection behemoth into your house by yourself. Big, heavy, and unweildy as hell.

The only thing that beats that is a damn Trinitron!

No kiddin'. I manhandled a 36" Trinitron all by my lonesome, ONCE. That was QUITE enuff, Thank You Very Much..

I once saw two 56" Trinitrons in the Coca-Cola boardroom in Atlanta. They said it took a forklift to bring them into the room. I don't doubt them. They really looked good!

Kids think anyone over 20 is crazy anyway..... so who cares what they think.....

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I am WAY charmed by that thought!

Like I said, growing up in the fifties, things were just starting to blossom, stereo sound, transistor radio and color television. My dad took me to a tv store for something and there among the b & w sets were two color tv's on and I think the show was The price is right.

From that point as a kid you could only wish you had one, and to make it worse when color shows came on the NBC Peacock would come on and taunt you, reminding you that this show was in full color, but not for you. Everytime we would go to Sears or any big department store I would head for the tv Dept to see if any color shows were on.

I'm not quite half way there yet (just turned 40) and I probably have the biggest collection on vintage TV sets in New Zealand last count around 50 or so but all currently in storage due to some major life changes over the past year.
We need this young blood to carry on the preservation of these old sets and its good to see there are young people getting interested in vintage technology as they will be the ones who will end up being the custodians of it all eventually.:D

Just a suggestion about sets in storage.
 

You need to periodically go in there and wipe down all your sets of mildew. I use a chlorine water mix (made from clorox bleach). That'll be good for about a year.
But I heard there is a product called Clearshell (made by ZEP) which is better!

"What does collecting old tv's mean to young people?"

Well to other young people, I must be a nut. lol I don't know, Never really thought about it. I guess, to me it's just preservation, and actually enjoying them. I don't mind black & white, while most other's my age group(i'm 22), would think your crazy if ya watch something in black and white.