[julianburke]

I believe WCOV has one but it is their icon/mascot since they are the original owner of it.

TK41's were produced until sometime in 1967 when RCA introduced their new full line of "New Look" equipment which was light blue in color instead of the "umber grey" so long and famous in the earlier RCA stuff. TK41's were used by their original owners for at least 10-15 years minimum until they were sent to other sister stations or universities/schools in favor of newer and better cameras not necessarily RCA. In their secondary market, they were used until they could no longer keep them up or knew how to. Others were used for remote pickups. They did make great color pictures unlike its' successor, the TK42-3's. RCA was flooded with orders for that "New Look" camera and sales were brisk but it later turned out to be a hated camera. They were early solid state, always required maintenance and would drop out of the chain without any notice. The TK42 had internal mechanical focus and zoom which was ill designed as the cable would bind and then become jerky which is a disaster when on the air. I don't think these had barely a 10 year life span in the studio. They were traded in or disposed of. The TK43 was an identical camera except the focus and zoom was external and trouble free. The TK43 is a very rare camera as it was short lived (too little too late) for its' successor, the TK44 which was a far better camera, produced a great rich and crisp color, more reliable and used the then new Plumbicon tubes. About this time other very good name brand cameras were available and many stations were jumping ship in favor of these such as Philips, Ikegami, GE, Norelco and others as they were outperforming RCA so the handwriting was on the wall. The TK series of 45, 46 and 47 were better than the last one and RCA sold a ton of TK47's all over the world. This was the last model produced by RCA. I have about 12 of these and they are getting harder to find. The TK48 was engineered and in production until RCA went out of business in 1986 or sold out to Thompson Ltd and they decided to not go into the camera business. None were shipped, and every unit that was finished on down to the bare chassis was hit with an ax and tossed into a dumpster.

A local engineer (my friend Doug) was the last class to graduate from the RCA Camden facility and he witnessed this action. They were trying to get them to take some of the stuff but most had no way to get it home or just didn't want it. Mostly video amplifiers or other small stuff-no cameras. I'm sure if I was there, my trunk would have been full as I saw the worth of it then. (That's why I have about 12,000 SF of stuff over 40 years!)

Regarding the TK41's, I think many more are in existance but they are overseas or squirreled away and forgotten. Anything that weighs several hundred pounds is not a really popular item! They are slowly finding their way out like the CT100's and I sometimes use the common rule of thumb as much as 10% of some stuff remains. If they produced about 1000, perhaps around 100 remain in one form or another in parts. Somewhere I saw production figures for this camera and it surprised me how many they did make but some went overseas. Most likely time will tell. BTW, the TK41 was a very serviceable unit, was very reliable for what it was and the engineers liked it very much which gave it about a 20 year life span which in todays advancement standards was phenominal! Plumbicons and vidicons took over the market until CCD's were introduced.

Now for an update on where I saw that list, Steve McVoys website has a camera listing showing Lytle Hoover's compilation of RCA cameras sold. It shows about 239 TK41's were sold. It shows 376 TK42's were sold and that is a scarcer camera to find! Less than a hundred TK43's were manufactured so they have to be very rare! If I am reading and gleaning all info from it, that includes overseas as well so correct me if I am wrong here. 239 is NOT a lot of cameras spread out throughout the world camera market!

Today, the lenses are larger than the camera.

Total production figures of the TK41's were 330, and a third of those went to Europe.