CT-100 on eBay
 

Tube has enough vacuum to keep the heaters from burning up at least.

http://cgi.ebay.com/RCA-Victor-Model...item2eb4e453fc

Bogus refinishing job. The color's all wrong. The back of his cabinet looks more authentic than the front.

Phil Nelson
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

The one at ETF has a lighter finish as well, could that be a factory color? I agree that it looks strange with the darker color showing on the rear facing wood. :scratch2:
jr

The finish is wrong but since they usually need redone anyway it doesn't matter much. If the CRT is good it's worth the opening bid, that's a big IF.

Hopefully someone in the San Rafael area can do an inspection and report back to us.

Fading is common over time, especially with exposure to bright light. When I removed the CRT bezel on mine, you could see a big contrast with the original finish that had been covered since new. The original color was redder as well as darker.

Phil Nelson

Pretty obvious the guy knows what he has....Wonder if its on anyone's database ?

I'm near San Rafael
 

But its been a long time since I did any electronics - used to work on tube hi-fi, guitar amps, and the occasional TV - 40 or more years ago.

Is there any easy way to tell if the CRT has vacuum - aside from the filaments lighting up?

Small tubes I remember had a silvery coating that would turn to white dust if the vacuum failed ,,,

The crt has a silvery getter as well, which turns white from exposure to air. You really need a crt tube tester to get any more info than that since the set is nonfunctional at this point.

A 15GP22 CRT can have a silver getter and still be gassy enough to not work.Here's an example from the ETF Site

I believe this was a rebuild that failed shortly after it was done.

http://www.earlytelevision.org/images/PURPLE-GLOW-1.jpg

Even if the tube is under partial vacuum, it could light the filiments have silver getters and still be gassy.. As sure way to test for vacuum integrity is to use a hand held high voltage tesla coil high frequency generator and apply it to the neck of the crt. If the neck gets a purple glow, the crt is gassy. If no purple glow it will have a good vacuum.

If it is not gassy and a crt checker shows good emission, then you have a useable crt.

Corona discharge in the HV cage and loss of HV would normally alarm me, but based on what I've seen here at the convention I'm no longer alarmed at CT-100's that do it.... 2 of the operating ones (one of which is a model 5) give off enough ozone to clean all the air in the building. lol

BADLY sun bleached. I had one that was blond on one side, and deep red elsewhere. That RCA red lacquer finish is very easily bleached.

Just to clarify; the only "factory issue" color was red. There were custom order sets in blond (I had the knobs and pencil box and insert from one), but those were special order only, and I only know of one besides the one my parts came from. CT-100MBO was the model tag. Same situation as the 1940s RCA 641-TS console combo. I had a 641-TS in bleached blond, which had special light brown bakelite knobs (as did the CT-100MBO). I got the 641 from the original owner, who ordered it and waited 6 months.

Charles

So the custom order CT-100MBO would have been much lighter than the lighter set at ETF?

http://www.earlytelevision.org/rca_ct-100.html

Now it may be an optical illusion, but in the third picture on the ETF page, the "pencil box" looks more "gold" than red, and the grille cloth looks lighter, but perhaps these items have faded as well.

jr

Yikes! That ballast resistor seems to be drooping at a very scary angle!

Gilbert

The ventilated cover is held on the ballast base with a few little metal tabs. It's easy to bump it in that exposed position and leave it a bit crooked, even when the base is securely plugged in.

Phil Nelson