I must know!!

[ProAc_Fan]

What is it you guys who collect and restore these old televisions "see" in them? Unlike audio gear where true advances in 2 channel analog sound haven't really advanced much in probably 40yrs, the same can't be said for televisions. The pictures on these old tv's must be dreadful compared to a Sony Wega or better yet an LCD or Plasma television. Is it just the nostalgia or the links to one's past? I'm not trying to troll here, I'd really like to know. I can't see any redeeming qualities in these old sets. Although I must confess some of Kam's old TV's are nice pieces of art, watching them is painful.

Mike

[Steve K]

Mike:

Good question! I have been collecting televisions for years and ask myself that all the time as I have no room for them and less money. I believe that I am probably half nuts and I can say that as I am a Psychologist! Now to the rest of you, I am kidding, and of course only speaking for myself here.

When televisions first hit the market they were the state-of-the-art technology and I am fascinated by the changes in such technology over time. Also, other people who are much younger than me have a difficult time believing that we actually watched such things, so if for no other reason someone needs to preserve this bit of history. For me it is also somewhat of a link to the past. I remember when color television was still pretty new to many (mid 60s) and I used to be a TV repairman so fixing the old sets takes me back to a much more simple time of my life (at least the way I see it now).

As for watching the old sets, at least the color ones, some do have remarkably good pictures. Even some of the CT-100s are quite easy to watch most notably Steve D's and from what I see of Terry's in his posts, his has an excellent picture. Some of the old 21 inch roundies (as they are called now) have a better picture than my '66 Zenith retangular. Sure you can't set them next to a modern digital set but hey, my regular modern TV is only 20 inches anyway.

So, I hope this helps. One word of advice, if you don't collect old TVs now don't start! It's hard to stop.

Steve K

[drh4683]

If you look at a 1950s/60s RCA Victor color tv, either 21" round or rectangular crt set that has been serviced correctly, I think you would be extremely impressed with the picture quality. In fact, honestly, I think the picture is better than almost any new tv. The color depth and picture sharpness is excellent. When my brother came to visit a few weeks ago he was stunned with the picture quality of my RCA CTC15 from 1964. This is not because he was surprised that a 1960s tv had a relatively nice picuture, its because it was a perfect razor sharp picture that looked better than his 32" sony trinitron. That's the truth. He could care less about the old tvs but seeing the picture changed his thoughts about how good they really were. Dont underestimate old tv technology untill you have seen it with your own eyes. The old tvs are built with care and quality. I appreciate them as they are built in USA and most of all they look good and are fun to restore.

[Steve Hoffman]

Vacuum tube color. Like in audio; the difference between tubes and solid state.

That "breath of life" is there with an all tube set. The purples, reds and yellows have that Technicolor look that is missing in modern sets. It's a great look; quite seductive!

[Steve McVoy]

I don't think you can honestly say that the old sets looked as good as today's receivers. The best you can say is that they look remarkably good considering the technology that was available at the time. Nobody claims that cars made in the 30s and 40s are as comfortable as those made today.

To me, the picture quality is irrelevant. It is the thrill of bringing a set to life that hasn't worked in 50 or 60 years that appeals to me.

[Cory]

Compared to a Wega, okay. But I'd take a rare earth phosphor set over any of the disposable junk being pedled at the local superstore that lots of folks are buying these days.

Picture quality is great and all for movies and DVDs, but for regular on-air viewing, the primary objective seems to be content. Case in point-> VHS. Digital is great, but you know the public will be kicking and screaming all the way.

As to why I collect? I'm 21 so it's certainly not a nostalgic issue, although I prefer the technology of those days. Dial telephones, movie projectors, typewriters and vacuum tubes. For me, it's partly bringing the set back to life, and embracing the feeling of how wonderous the technology is. That through a collection of glass tubes and some passive components, living color pictures could be seen right in your living room! And there's certainly something special about watching a classic show on a vintage set.

Cory
(who uses a BW 8" '56 RCA as an everyday set)

[Rob]

I'm with Steve McVoy. There's no way that the best early color sets can compete picture quality with good modern sets. Picture geometry, black level control, video bandwidth, chroma demodulation, all are miles advanced on new TV's. Dot pitch is finer than on the early color tubes as well. Mind you the new TV's have the equivalent of literally hundreds of vacuum tubes contained in their complicated circuits. What amazes me is how good a color picture the clever engineers were able to coax from minimized simple circuits using only 20 or so tubes back then. Absolutely amazing! That is part of my appreciation and respect for these wonders, for wonders they certainly were in their day.

Since they are a part of my youth I enjoy them as a nostalgic connection with the past. I appreciate all the really vintage TV's, B&W included, the round screens for their interesting industrial design and as pieces of period piece furniture. Most 40's TV's were made from real hardwood, not molded black plastic.

I see the outside of the vintage set as a cool retro piece of furniture. I'm just as impressed with the look of the inside from my interest in the earlier technology.

I almost never watch my vintage B&W sets except to show them off to visitors on occasion. I will actually watch the roundie color sets when vintage shows come on like the original Star Trek. It gives me a nostalgic blast-to-the-past.

By collecting and restoring these (in some cases) I also feel that I am doing a good service to future generations, assuming that the efforts represented by my collection will be preserved by another when I'm gone, and so on for future generations to see.

I predict that the ONLY roundie color sets that will exist in 50 years time will be in the hands of a few collectors. It will be next to impossible to obtain one. Additionally, only their owners will have the secret knowledge (and parts) needed to keep them going.

Rob

[drh4683]

I guess this is my chance to ask a question I have been wanting to ask for a while here on AK. How many of us vintage color tv collectors have a vintage color tv that you watch as a daily watcher all the time. I am one of them, my RCA CTC25.

[Steve Hoffman]

Originally posted by drh4683
I guess this is my chance to ask a question I have been wanting to ask for a while here on AK. How many of us vintage color tv collectors have a vintage color tv that you watch as a daily watcher all the time. I am one of them, my RCA CTC25, its the only TV I watch all the time.

About one hour a week for me. I'd love to watch more, but my local RCA-Victor tube dealer seems to have gone out of business....

[Steve D.]

I don't use my CT-100 as a daily watcher but I still get a thrill when I turn it on. That clunk sound when you power it up. The electrical crackle when the electrons first hit the shadow mask. And how they ever managed to produce a full color picture still amazes me. I also take great pleasure in just looking at my CTC-5 Wingate. The huge double door cabinet all polished up in maple splendor stands proudly in a corner of my living room. So when I see all the fine old sets pictured on this site I don't have to ask why these guys collected them.... I know.

[Jeffhs]

I owned a 1964 Silvertone (RCA chassis CTC-12) round-tube table model color TV in the early 1970s which I got from a neighbor in my old neighborhood, a suburb of Cleveland. The set needed some work, but when I turned it on for the first time . . . well, the picture was there, but it was not as good (in fact, nowhere nearly as good) as the picture on my present RCA CTC185 (F19261 19-inch). There have been tremendous advances in television technology in the last 30 years which allow TV stations to transmit more powerful signals and better video on those signals, and the TVs themselves are much better than they used to be, the country of origin of all new sets notwithstanding. For example, my Silvertone did not have automatic color control, color tracking or remote control, whereas my RCA has all three. The convergence circuits in new sets are much more stable than the earlier ones as well. It used to be that one could not move a color television across a room without the CRT becoming magnetized, which meant a serviceman had to be called to degauss the tube; moreover, time was when color sets required convergence touchups at least once a year. Thanks to new convergence correction circuitry, today's color sets can go for years without having to be reconverged (unless the CRT is replaced, of course). All modern color sets are equipped with automatic degaussing which operates every time the set is switched on, so set owners can move their sets anywhere with no worries about the CRT's shadow mask becoming magnetized.

My point is that today's color sets (and the technology used to transmit the signals those sets receive) are much better than their predecessors of 30 or more years ago. I have to admit that I am more impressed these days with the cabinets of those old sets than with what's inside them, even though I used to work on those old sets in the late 60s and early 1970s as a hobby. I responded to a post this morning from a gentleman who had a 1967 Magnavox color TV in a white French Provincial cabinet. The cabinet needed work, to be sure, but the craftsmanship, what little of it I could see in the image attached to the post, was in my opinion much better than that of the cabinets modern TV sets come in (unless, of course, you are willing to pay through the nose for a modern console).

I almost laughed out loud (in fact, I did) when I read a post today from a person who said he had an aunt who owned a Magnavox TV in the same type of cabinet until some time in the 1980s, then went out and bought a Zenith TV which the poster described as a "generic hunk of Korean plastic" (no offense meant or intended; I am only quoting the post, so please, no flames). The new set didn't look like much; the cabinet was just an off-white shell on a matching integrated pedestal base.

However, times have changed. The era of the elegant console television is over. In its place, we now have folks putting their entertainment gear, which these days often consists of a 32-inch or larger TV, a VCR and/or DVD player, stereo installation, and perhaps a cable box, in an entertainment-center cabinet which matches the decor of the family's living room or family room. These cabinets are nice, but except for the very expensive ones some of them are not (again, in my own opinion) as well-crafted as the old TV cabinets were.

I like the idea of using the cabinet from an old console TV as a stand for a modern set. I did something like that with a utility cart meant for use with a microwave oven. I set my RCA TV on top, put my VCR on the shelf immediately below, and the cable box on the third shelf below that. The result is a video installation I am really proud of. I live in a very small apartment, so don't have the room for a big entertainment center as I did when I lived in the Cleveland area. No matter. I am as proud of my present video installation as I would be if I had a big floor console. The cart matches the decor of my apartment perfectly, and as for cable management, all cables are neatly tucked behind the back of the cabinet where they don't show. (I also mounted a 6-outlet power strip on the back of the cart and plugged all my gear into it. Makes things look a lot neater.) In fact, the only cables visible from the front of the cart are the power cord for the TV and the RF cable from the VCR to the antenna port in back of the set.

I'm sorry I don't have a good picture of my installation, but one of these days I'll snap a couple new ones and show it off.

Regards,

[Rob]

Jeffhs,

I agree with you that the early TV console cabinets were way better than the quality of today's 'cabinets'. Nowadays for example they used pressed sawdust and Mac-Tac (a plastic film printed to look like wood grain), back then they employed either solid hardwood throughout, or at least hardwood frame and hardwood veneer.

I have a nice looking 16" round screen RCA with full length doors from 1949-50 that I am seriously considering gutting and making into an AV cabinet with adjustable shelves inside for my home entertainment center in the living room. It is all hardwood and mahogany veneer stained darkly. It looks lovely, a fine piece of furniture. I hate to cannibalise a vintage Tv though.

Rob

[captainmoody]

It seems odd in a way that console sets aren't popular anymore, When I look at our entertainment center upstairs it takes up six feet on the north wall, Has in it a 27" tv, DVD player, VCR and stereo. The one in the basement has a 36" tv, VCR and DVD.
Then I look at my '68 Motorola combo that has the tv, stereo and record player, It is as long but only half as tall! So it really takes up less room.
You would think that something similar with all the new technology could be made today, Of course then I suppose, People wouldn't be able to change out individual items easily as they grew tired of them or they failed.

Originally posted by Rob


I have a nice looking 16" round screen RCA with full length doors from 1949-50 that I am seriously considering gutting and making into an AV cabinet with adjustable shelves inside for my home entertainment center in the living room.

Rob

Rob,

I had to do a double take to be sure it was you who posted that. And about a round tube set to boot!

As far as today's pressed sawdust and Mac-Tac cabinets are concerned, today's consumers are voting with their dollars, and what they are getting is what they "elected". Perhaps the consumers of the '50s & '60s had more sense, and what they elected is now collected.

Even though modern color sets may have a better picture than a '60s roundie, there is no "thrill" in watching it. We expect it to look good . . . . it had better, with all those chips, saw filters, varactors, and the like. But, there is nothing in television today (not even HDTV) that can equal the thrill of seeing one's first color program - in really good color - back in the '50s or '60s on a set with two dozen vacuum tubes and a round CRT that crackled when it came on!

[Rob]

Bill S,

Yeah, I'd feel guilty gutting this set, but I do need a quality cabinet for my entertainment center, and to have it match the vintage TV's on display in the same room would be a nice touch.

As far as the cabinets today, in the past 40 years we got much better at decimating the forests and hardwood which takes a very long time to grow, once abundant is now more precious as ever. Add to that the fact that today's money is almost worthless compared to a 1940's dollar and you see that the masses, of which there are too many now for the poor planet to support IMO, can only afford to buy processed sawdust.

Rob