Sears Color TV 15gp22 clone

Just wondering if anyone still remembers this model... Much discussion has been noted here about the ct-100 and 15gp22. Well here is a little talked about TV model from the mid 1960's. Early in the 1960's when the japanese were just starting build television sets many were licensed copies from American manufactures. Well the first Color TV set built by matshuista (Panasonic) was a "updated" CT-100 sold under the Sears label. The CRT has the japanese designation (ie the 15 was just to metric) and much of the tubes updated to later types. I saw one of these sets in 1970 for service. I measured the CRT compared diagrams to the CT-100 and it had the same electro-static convergence...wow! Anybody (maybe an old Sears tech) remember the model ?

[Eric H]

Sometime in the mid 70's I got my hands on an old (old even then) Sears color set. (I've mentioned this before in another thread) I know it was color because we didn't have color at the time and I was excited at the prospect of getting it working (fat chance at that time )

I can't remember much about it other than it was a roundie and it wasn't a 21" set!
I remember it being a squarish tabletop model with a large neck tube and a 50's looking chassis with big tubes in the sweep section.

Seems like this could be researched by someone with access to some Sears catalogs from the era? (Perhaps the Library would have them?)

I had one of those sets in the late 60's. Somebody had traded it in at the TV store, where I worked at part time. I think I paid the boss $75.00 for it. The chassis was very similar to an RCA set of the era, and it used a 15" picture tube with the same large round socket as popular 21" American TV's. It was quite deep, so it was probably a 70 degree deflection angle tube. The thing made a great picture. The smaller tube probably had a lot to do with that, since it reduced convergence error, which was still a big deal in 1968. My parents had a huge RCA color console in the living troom, and this set ran rings around it picture wise.

The downside was it was incredibly ugly. It was just a big black metal box with a small picture. None the less, it was the start of Japan's entry into the US TV market, which did a lot to improve over all color TV quality.

[Eric H]

Originally Posted by chuxgarage

The downside was it was incredibly ugly. It was just a big black metal box with a small picture.

That sounds exactly like the one I had! Wish I'd kept it.

[Tom_Ryan]

The history of Japanese color tv manufacture is very interesting. Toshiba was an OEM supplier for Sears in the 1960's for color sets, this included some early color portables (not really portable by todays standards!). Competing with Toshiba in domestic Japan, at that time, was Sony. Sony was not yet a household name in America. Sony battled with Toshiba for market share. This forced Sony to push their Chromatron color tv technology which became a technical flop and almost sent them into bankcruptcy in the late 1960's. Toshiba, on the other hand, was licensing RCA color technology to manufacture tv's in domestic Jaoan and for export to the USA....that is until Sony starting marketing the Trinitron in 1968 (Sony almost signed a licensing agreement with RCA - but backed out in favor of Trinitron development).

Toshiba was sneaky becuase it didn't have the technology to develop their own color CRT's. So, to beat Sony in the '60's they purchased 21FJP22 electron guns from RCA and attached them to smaller Japanese glass bottles back in Japan. The cost to domestic Japanese was reasonable since the CRT's were assembled in Japan locally. But, the export version back to the the good 'ol USA cost a lot more to ship. I have an early Toshiba color set with a 15" rectangular screen built this way. It does produce an excellent color picture and convergence errors are minimal. Strange set but it works great and has nice color. Yes, it too is very very ugly ...a large grey steel box with a tiny color picture and weighs a ton! No beauty awards for this one.

[roundscreen]

I think this is the set you guys are talking about. The neck of the crt looks like a round tube but it has a rectangular screen and is made by toshiba.
I also have the ugly black one too and they do have a nice picture.

[Eric H]

Originally Posted by roundscreen

I think this is the set you guys are talking about. The neck of the crt looks like a round tube but it has a rectangular screen and is made by toshiba.
I also have the ugly black one too and they do have a nice picture.

Could be, I swear it was a roundie but it's been a long time.

[Tom_Ryan]

Yep that's the one, here's a picture of mine. Great picture. Steel cabinet (table top portable). Say, do you have the circuit diagram? I could use a copy. I could also use a UHF tuner assembly. Know where I could srounge either the schematic or tuner?

[Sandy G]

I think that was the Sears color set we had back in 1965-66 that was so awful. We had the repairman down about once a week, if memory serves. I've fussed about this thing before. It was a small consolette, my dad finally said the hell w/it & bought one of the 1st Porta-Colors, that l'il guy soldiered on for nearly 10 yrs w/o a burp...

[Tom_Ryan]

Lots of thermal problems ...after the re-capping I added a small fan inside to keep the hotspots to a minimum.

[Bobby Brady]

Are we sure there were not Sears roundie 15" sets made?
If there were then we have other possible crt's. Could that Sears rectangle crt possibly be used in the RCA CT-100's in place of the round 15GP22's?

[Eric H]

Hmm, those don't look anything like the one I had, I'm sure it was square not rectangular and it looked more 1950's, I think it had a "Color" emblem under the screen.

I had a Japanese Sears similar to yours but it had a regular small neck tube that wasn't very deep.

[Pete Deksnis]

Originally Posted by BobMeader

I ... compared diagrams to the CT-100 and it had the same electro-static convergence...!

That'll be one for the history books if/when confirmed. In '54 there was a drive to get away from the pressures brought about by the high-voltage static/dynamic convergence challenges of the 15GP22 and 15HP22 tricolor CRTs. We know Rauland experimented with a '15GP22' built without a G4 (convergence) element for use in magnetic convergence development.

It seems unlikely the Japanese would have bothered with static convergence by that time when the magnetic method was so entrenched. But then I would have said the same thing about a Japanese three-CRT color set from the same era, which as we know now, was a reality.

[colortel]

I was recently give a tour by an important but "under the radar screen" television collector and was pleased to see his Sears Silvertone Rectangular Color Set - a set I had not seen since its introduction.

This is a historically significant color receiver as it was the first import from Japan and was one of the first rectangular receivers.

Doing some research in my files, I have now found an article (in a Sam's special issue on Color Television) on the Sears set, named a Silvertone, and built by Toshiba. The article (at that time) claimed it was the first Japanese set to enter the U.S. market and the first to get U.L. approval. It came out in 1964-65. List was 349.95 while U.S. 21-inch rounds started at $380.00. There are color pix of the chassis in the article. They called it a 16-inch rectangular - it had a small compact floor standing cabinet - it looks like a small toy TV. I remember a trip of mine to Sears to see that set.

I have added that Sears set to the pioneering color receiver data base that Steve McVoy and I edit and maintain at:

http://www.earlytelevision.org/color_database.html

I am pleased that "roundscreen" also has one and will add his set to the list - his set will make two of these known. I would appreciate a model number and copies of any documentation that he has.

Yes, Sears did bring out an early 15GP22 color set in 1954. If the owner/collector of that set ops to come forward he can confirm it with photos.

Thanks,

Ed Reitan
"Colortel"

[John Folsom]

Yes indeed, Sears (Silvertone) did field a 15" set in 1954. I do not know how many of these sets were made, but this set and the spare set of chassis I have were production sets. I also do not know if the sets were sold to the public, or just for display in the stores.

The set is a unique design, not a CT100 "clone". The small chassis on the side of the cabinet is the color processing circuitry, and the main power supply (not pictured) is a separate chassis mounted below the main chassis at the bottom of the cabinet. All the static and dynamic convergence controls are accessible from the front of the set, which makes it handy for set-up.

The set perform pretty well, though the hue control has a very limited range. I don't think Sears fielded another color set until the 1960s. I contacted the corporate historian at Sears about the set, and they were clueless.