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  #1  
Old 09-10-2010, 12:15 AM
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aidynphoenix aidynphoenix is offline
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why old classics?

i understand the thrill and feeling of great accomplishment of restoring a beautifull piece of history to its origional condition and glory..

but i dont quite understand what you can use them for..
i know some of you use these old black and white classics with the tiny screens in your living rooms.. and watch old movies on them..

but why this over a large color crt or flatpannel?
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  #2  
Old 09-10-2010, 01:05 AM
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Phil Nelson Phil Nelson is offline
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Well, if you have to ask . . .

Seriously, some vintage TVs have screens that are big enough to be perfectly watchable. One of those that's properly restored, with a bright, crisp picture, might be enough to convert you to black and white.

If you think about it, much of the content watched on TV benefits little from being in color. 80% of what we watch is talking heads. You could watch them in black and white -- or purple and white -- without missing anything. Who cares if the newscaster is wearing a red tie or a blue one?

It's interesting how TV/movie watching has become such a background, or medium-ground, activity. In our family, it's rare that we'll all sit down and watch a movie or TV show without doing anything else. More often, our kids keep half an eye on the screen while tapping on their laptops, texting on their phones, etc. In today's paper, I read that the big complaint about 3-D TV is that the glasses make it impossible to do anything else while watching. If you're only half paying attention in the first place, is color or screen size really that important?

For me, much of the interest in these old sets is in the technology as well as the history. If neither of those subjects interests you, then I guess vintage TVs are not for you. Find a flat screen at Wal-Mart or wherever, and watch away (or half-watch, anyhow).

Phil Nelson
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Old 09-10-2010, 08:38 AM
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You had to be there

for those of us who lived during the transistion to color it was a magical time. Color tv in the 50's was a technology that was a technical achievement that had no rival in the consumer world. Seeing color tv was very special back then.

Now even the HD technology doesn't hold the same excitement that color did back then. Owners of early color sets treated their sets like royalty and anyone who was invited to watch them walked away feeling they just experienced something very special for that place in time.
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Old 09-10-2010, 11:11 AM
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Even in the Seventies getting a color TV was a big deal. Televisions then were not treated like appliances as they are today. It was a prized household possession that was generally treated with care if you did not want someone to get mad at you. An expensive 25" console color TV in a nice wood cabinet was a piece of furniture and you didn't dare set a drink on top of it. I think the trend toward black plastic cabinets even in large sets has caused most people to forget how much we used to value television sets.
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Old 09-10-2010, 12:02 PM
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Some of us simply came of age with these very sets being discussed on this site. My parents had a 17" Bendix, then a 21" GE with a book-sized remote. Our two Silvertone 23-inchers, bought in 1962 and 1967, were the typical "big screen" sets seen in most homes at the time. My grade-school had Admiral 23-inchers on tall carts. Dad bought a CTC-38 in 1969 when I started high school.

I watch what little TV I find relevant on my PC monitor. A YouTube video image is no bigger than a vintage portable TV image. Why should I spend 1000+ dollars to see TV in a format I find no more useful than what I grew up with. Sure the resolution is finer, but I'm not looking for a lost contact lens or a needle in a haystack, I'm simply being entertained by whatever I'm watching.

Imagine, if you will, spending the first 40 years of your life NOT having internet, cell phones or HDTV. I worry your head would explode from the boredom!

Personally, I have little use for the current economy based on importing TV's once manufactured by people right here in the USA. It's harder every day to keep the economy moving when the engine of manufacturing has been removed. You may have a Yamaha for your avatar, but I hope you aren't thanking them for your freedom. Free trade isn't free, it has cost us dearly.

Last edited by Einar72; 09-10-2010 at 12:06 PM.
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Old 09-10-2010, 12:14 PM
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Old 09-10-2010, 01:09 PM
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"Why old classics?" Because we enjoy them.

I enjoy the set I grew up with. It's the same age as me.

I really do enjoy my WD-60C9 1080p DLP set. However, it spoils standard definition. I mostly watch HD shows on it.

Some things just look ugly blown up. Watching DVDs of classic shows on a large HD set is not enjoyable. Seeing them on a 12" or so B/W set that they were intended for is great! Some are hoke by today's standards, but for the most part I enjoy them more than current programming.

John
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Old 09-10-2010, 02:19 PM
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Which looks better to you?





If you laugh at the first picture then maybe old TV's aren't your thing. I think they're great. And they take you to a different time where things aren't as complicated. That particular Admiral TV puts a smile on my face.
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  #9  
Old 09-10-2010, 02:40 PM
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Jeffhs Jeffhs is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Einar72 View Post
Some of us simply came of age with these very sets being discussed on this site. My parents had a 17" Bendix, then a 21" GE with a book-sized remote. Our two Silvertone 23-inchers, bought in 1962 and 1967, were the typical "big screen" sets seen in most homes at the time. My grade-school had Admiral 23-inchers on tall carts. Dad bought a CTC-38 in 1969 when I started high school.



Imagine, if you will, spending the first 40 years of your life NOT having internet, cell phones or HDTV. I worry your head would explode from the boredom!

I am 54 years old and did in fact spend the first 41 years of my life without the things you mention; however, I was not bored in the least.

I grew up with black-and-white TV, as that was all we ever had until 1972. I had a Silvertone (Sears) 21" roundie I got from one of my neighbors in 1970, but that set was in the basement most of the time. The first color set in our living room (a Silvertone 25" console) actually belonged to my grandmother, who moved into our house in '72 (very long story and OT).

The elementary school and middle school I attended in the '60s-'70s also had RCA Victor "New Vista" b&w 23" TVs on carts in the classrooms, fed by a master antenna system in grade school, but my middle school was still using rabbit ears on the sets. My grade school is long gone (the building was demolished several years ago), so I don't know what happened to those RCA NV sets; as to my middle school, I don't know whatever became of its TVs, either. They also had RCA New Vista TVs, 25" table models on carts. My fondest memories of those sets are of watching the morning news (the last few minutes of NBC's Today Show, decades before it went to four hours [!]) in my world-affairs class on one of those TVs in the back of the classroom. Being b&w and of course analog, there were no reception problems on any of the sets, even on indoor antennas; however, today, I would think (and would not be the least bit surprised if) the local high school, middle school and elementary school in my hometown are now wired for cable, and use flat-panel HDTVs.The RCA New Vista sets, unfortunately, may have been trashed, sent to a landfill, or goodness only knows what, when the elementary school was demolished.
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  #10  
Old 09-10-2010, 03:08 PM
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For me there are only two reasons:

They're built better.

and two,

They were built here.
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  #11  
Old 09-10-2010, 04:26 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeffhs View Post

The elementary school and middle school I attended in the '60s-'70s also had RCA Victor "New Vista" b&w 23" TVs on carts in the classrooms
I'm a couple years older, and we had TVs in the classrooms in my grammar school. The TVs were rarely used. Usually once a year for us to watch some badly written anti-drug shows.
Mrs Murphy showing the secondary use of a blackboard pointer...
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Old 09-10-2010, 07:32 PM
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RitchieMars RitchieMars is offline
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I think that if you understand the feeling of adventure and accomplishment that comes with restoring a classic, then understanding the reasoning behind those who actually use them as originally intended should come quite naturally. To me, the concept that antique electronics are merely "novelties" rather than being of any real use in the modern world is absurd. I mean when they stopped broadcasting in digital around here, they kept going on about converter boxes and reminding everyone about it. Still, some people continue to look at me and my old television as if they're completely clueless about these things. "But... can you even watch anything on that thing anymore?" Of course you can! It's a television!

As for why you'd choose to have an antique television in your living room, it's all up to personal preference. I'd imagine that many collectors have a favorite set that they like to watch a lot, and once you become entranced into the hobby, it's hard to look at a flimsy, black plastic, Japanese-made flat-screen television the same ever again. Many grew up with a simple black and white television and for them, they don't feel like they're missing out on very much.

So what about a younger enthusiast like me? Well, I think it's just that the more I listen to these older folks and read stories about the things that went on decades before I was ever born, I've grown to realize just how cheated I am to have been born in the 1980's. It's not so much that life in past was infinitely better than the present, but it's all in the way that you experienced that life. For instance the experience of putting a needle on a spinning record and hearing that first little crackle of static before the music starts, or waiting for that first little hint of sound to come through as the tubes warm up, or watching that black and white image shrink into a little dot after you've turned off the television. The technology itself wasn't as advanced as it is now, but that's not the point. It's the little things you had to do in order to get it to work. It had more character, both in the way it was manipulated physically and in the way it looked, sounded, and felt to people. I believe these devices left more impact on the people who used them; much more so than their disposable counterparts of today.

That's why I think it's the experience of actually being able to use my television that drives me to restore it much more so than the sense of accomplishment. The feat will have a much more prolonged sense of appreciation if I actually get some use out of it. Not to mention, I didn't grow up with a black and white television like my father's generation did. The experience is completely foreign to me, and I think that also makes it much more fascinating.

Last edited by RitchieMars; 09-10-2010 at 07:37 PM.
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  #13  
Old 09-10-2010, 08:44 PM
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Speaking for myself, I get to use the latest state of the art technology all day, its tricky, expensive and unreliable in a majority of applications that are used and many applications that are unnecessary to begin with. When I go home and look at a roundie you know it was a unique time and era when they existed initially as new. Space was a new frontier as well as many other aspects of life, I didnt have a roundie til I was 13 and my friends had the squeeky econo-box 19" Goldstar models. I had a true quality color/sound Zentih roundie console in my room and my friends wanted to watch it and that was in 1977. I can go to Best Buy and look at a 62" Mitsubishi today and say yep its flat and if I zoom in enough I can see the retina and cornea of the actors eyes and that is just what I wanted to see tonight! NO thanks I guess I consider them like the senior picture, its clear, crisp and doctored, I would rather see it like it is because standard is all we can see in reality... so why doctor it? I dont wear HD glasses when I read a book do you?
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Old 09-10-2010, 10:55 PM
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droptop droptop is offline
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So many great points have been made in this thread. For me, the sense of accomplishment I felt when the finishing touches were put on my CTC 7 Grenoble was very rewarding. The challenge of trying my hand at an early color set restoration was the motivation. The adventure began when I acquired the set from the original owner’s family. Narrowing the trouble to the flyback transformer and then managing to find a brand new one in the original 50 year old RCA box still amazes me.

Imagination is what fuels many people’s interests. In my case, I visualized how the TV would look and work when it was finished. Then came the inevitable wondering what the original owners watched on it. What they talked about during the commercials and in the case of my set who held the remote control. What I’m getting at is simple. We live in a world where people are stimulated by input from many sources but that’s all it is- stimulation by absorption. Not much challenge there. At age 50 I’m part of the generation that made our own fun. We didn’t wait for some outside source to come along and lead us to it. Our imagination was the starting point and we ran with it. It’s the same imagination that gave me the desire to own and restore an early color set.

Another part is the pride of ownership. Having a color TV in the 1958 was a big deal. I’ve heard many firsthand stories. It was 1972 when my family got our first color set and yes it was still a big deal. Not everyone on the block can say they have a 52 year old color TV in their home. In 2010 it’s still a big deal to me. Owning, sharing and showing a set like this to friends and family is a great reward and I feel privileged to be able to do it. Many have never seen one and a few remember them from personal experience but either way everyone who sees it has been thoroughly entertained by it and their reasons are many.

I’m sure many of us have “romanticized” much of the nostalgia that accompanies what we collect but it might all disappear if we don’t share our thoughts, feelings and experiences with those that didn’t live in an earlier time in history. I’m glad there are younger enthusiasts like RitchieMars and the way he explained that “it's all in the way that you experienced that life”. It’s also the memories of your life that you carry with you. And we can all do with a few pleasant memories about now.
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Old 09-11-2010, 02:06 AM
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Why old televisions?

For myself, I do embrace in today's LCD television technology, however I find it more thrilling to see how television looked like back in its earliest years. I pretty much grew up with the 80s and 90s generation of televisions going from silver and fake plastic woodgrain of the 80s to black or silver plastic sets in the 90s and early 2000s, so I saw that as the norm. In my late teens I liked watching modern programs on a late 1970s Thorn colour TV, it was thrilling for me. Around 2006 I got off the street a 1959 HMV B&W TV and had my techo friend restore it to working order and I found it even more thrilling viewing modern programs and my little CCD camera on it. And I have been seeing the wonderful restoration of the oldest colour and B&W sets over the net and I think WOW televisions back then gave very good pictures like the more modern CRT TV sets. For some reason I find it thrilling bridging two diverse eras of technology, seeing modern pictures on televisions that are 50+ years old is amazing!!!

I also find just as thrilling seeing 1950s B&W and colour videotape recordings as I am amazed to see how good quality live television really was, pity most of it exists on kinescopes.

So that's my reason for getting into old televisions, and from that I really learned to appreciate this golden age technology as much as today's top notch LCD technology!
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