Hallicrafters Roundie

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by Sandy G

Hallicrafters DID make a mere handful of color sets, but I don't know if they were 15" or 21s.. They threw in the towel on TVs sometime around 1955 or '56. Seems like I remember reading that they were all given/rented to their larger distributors, none offered to the general public.

I don't know of 15" sets (Maybe they existed, and I never heard of them, maybe they did not exist) but Hali DID offer a rebadged CTC-4 in a cabinet different from the RCAs....THOSE were 21" and used the 21AXP22. Bob Galanter brought a VERY rotten one back from the dead....He practically had to make it a new cabinet....Only 2 of those Hali CTC-4s still exist so finding another one would be a very rare and valuable find indeed.

[Steve D.]

Newspaper article from Dec. 23, 1957.

-Steve D.

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by Steve D.

Newspaper article from Dec. 23, 1957.

I think a recession was happening around then.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by wa2ise

I think a recession was happening around then.

It looks like some of their employees received a real nice Christmas gift, a pink slip.
I know, they made sets for Sears and Sylvania. There was some kind of connection with Crosley, as well. Crosley quit TV's and radios, around the same time.

[Robert Grant]

Originally Posted by Steve D.

Hallicrafters produced TV receivers well into the '50's. Here is their 1951 line up.

-Steve D.

Ouch! Bad memories. When I was about 12, our next door neighbor, a widower living alone, passed away. Several months later, an estate sale was held. One of the items for sale was a 1951 Hallicrafters TV (it looked like the upright without doors in your brochure), and priced at $10.
My mother flat out refused to let me buy the set, even though I really, really wanted it.
Perhaps why, once out of the parents' house, I started accumulating sets, LOL

[KentTeffeteller]

Yes, recession was ongoing when Hallicrafters discontinued TV set manufacturing and Crosley also ceased manufacturing. 1956-1959 were tough economic times.

[Steve D.]

That recession period really hit color tv sales hard. RCA Victor was the last man standing and the sole manufacturer & promoter of a full line of color receivers for a couple of years. Many dealers still having left over stocks of RCA & other brands of color tv's for sale at fire sale prices. RCA owned NBC continuing, for obvious reasons, their some what limited color programming. CBS pretty much cutting color shows back to almost but not quite zero. ABC yet to introduce any color telecasts during this period. The public saw no reason to invest hard to come by big bucks in tinted tv.

-Steve D.

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by KentTeffeteller

...1956-1959 were tough economic times.

My father went back to college, as a graduate student, to learn computer work around then. Something almost noone in the workforce knew anything about, back then. It worked, he got a decent job after he completed the degree, a job that lasted 20 years. Better than just being a cost accountant.

[Phil Nelson]

Hallicrafters produced a couple of interesting 1948 sets. Their model 505 (http://antiqueradio.org/halli505.htm) had push-button tuning:



The same chassis was offered in a metal cabinet that resembled a Hallicrafters SX-42 boatanchor (model T-54) and in a leatherette cabinet with a hinged cover (model 514).

The 1948 model T-67 was a better quality set (http://antiqueradio.org/hallit-67.htm):



Their 1950s sets were uniformly blah. I suspect they had low sales; I have never seen one in the flesh.

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

[s-petersen]

I finally went to my aunt's house and got a look at the Hallicrafters TV
it is certainly B&W, it is a Stratarama The Ink for the model # is very faded,
I could only make out a few digits 21K4... I don't think is is worth bothering with.

[electronjohn]

We had a bunch of Halli TVs when I was a kid. My uncle put himself through college fixing TVs in Gram & Gramps basement & he'd refurb & sell sets that folks "abandoned". He was a big Halli fan (ham operator...natch) and felt they were among the best-built TVs. He'd fix us up with 21" table models...my Mom called them "beer joint TVs" since that was the type you'd usually see mounted up in the corner at the bar.

[Sandy G]

Yeah, there was a pretty severe recession, late 1957. Ford got caught, too-That was when they brought out the Edsel. Likely NOTHING would have mattered w/it, though. They also introduced an ENTIRELY new Lincoln that was the biggest Unibody car made up til that point. Had the biggest V-8, 430 cubic inches, as well. They SHOULD have waited a year or 2, the Lincoln, especially, had LOTS of "Teething Troubles", NOT something you want for yr TOTL product. The T-Bird, also, was totally new, it & the Lincoln were a lot alike under the skin. Both were made in a brand-new plant in Wixom, Michigan. The Lincoln, in 1958, had rather aggressive, BIZARRE styling that accentuated its tremendous size. Ford product planners produced a car that "out-Cadillaced Cadillac" in every way, but it was STILL a crashing LOSER in the marketplace. Sorry if I go off on tangents, but I find the social history of the late Fifties EXTREMELY interesting. And I HAVE studied quite a bit about the Automotive industry of the times...