I mean to ask, is there a compilation of what companies were succeeded by whoever?

Zenith bought by Goldstar etc etc That sort of thing. Would also like to find out who built the various big name private label brands like Sears.

Unless such a list already exists, this would be a real handy thing to have as it would help those with a historical interest and assist those needing to ID their set for repairs.

Obviously there will be instances where a company went thru several owners or a private label used several suppliers. This would need to be addressed as well.

Another thing that'd be nice would be a list of all TV makers (at least American) along with their dates of operation and perhaps where they were built.

Comments?

Anthony
PS I wasn't sure what forum category to put this under, but thought that because SS sets where built in more recent times and that more companies have morphed since long ago that it made sense to post here.

This may not be absolutely accurate but here's what I know, regarding entertainment type equipment, please correct any oversights/mistakes:

RCA--owned by Thomson (based in France), sold in 1986. It may have sold to GE first who in turn sold to Thomson. The RCA name is also now being licensed to Radio Shack.

GE--also sold to Thomson, 1986...Thomson GE equipment only has the GE monogram and not the words "General Electric".

Zenith--I think LG (Lucky-Goldstar) had a stake in Zenith in the 1980's and now controls it.

Philco was bought by Ford Motor Co. in the early 1960's and sold to North American Philips in 1974 or 75. The Philco name may still be used on some K-mart electronics.

Packard Bell was bought by Teledyne sometime in the 60's and continued till around 1974 or 75. I don't know who revived the name for computers in the 80's.

Sylvania was bought by GTE in the 60's I think. Electronics were sold to North American Philips in late 70's. The Sylvania name now may be owned by Funai as some Funai units now bear the Sylvania name.

Magnavox was bought by North Am. Philips also sometime in the late 70's. The original Magnavox company in Fort Wayne, Ind. continued to manufacture electronics for the military and cotinued to use the old Magnavox upper-and-lower case logo. Any Mag. product which has the MAGNAVOX name in all upper case was made by North American Philips I believe.

Admiral was bought by Rockwell International in the early-mid 70's. The Admiral name font on the products is different on the Rockwell units. It seems like Admiral was phased out in the late 70's early 80's. Some trace of Admiral continued on as AOC (Admiral Overseas Corp) through the 80's. The name was revived by Montgomery Ward for their private label in the 1990's.

JVC is Japan Victor Corp. also called Nivico in the 60's (NIppon VIctor COrp.) There is some connection between it and Victor Talking Machine Co./RCA Victor but I don't know what it is.

Stromberg-Carlson was owned by military contractor General Dynamics, I think this brand went out in the late 60's.

That's all I can think of!

Originally posted by Chad Hauris

RCA--owned by Thomson (based in France), sold in 1986. It may have sold to GE first who in turn sold to Thomson. The RCA name is also now being licensed to Radio Shack.

GE--also sold to Thomson, 1986...Thomson GE equipment only has the GE monogram and not the words "General Electric".

From what I know, GE bought RCA and then sold the combined consumer electronics division to Thomson


Zenith--I think LG (Lucky-Goldstar) had a stake in Zenith in the 1980's and now controls it.

Yes, Goldstar first bought a stake in Zenith and then raped and pillaged what was left.

Philco was bought by Ford Motor Co. in the early 1960's and sold to North American Philips in 1974 or 75. The Philco name may still be used on some K-mart electronics.

I heard somewhere that supposedly Ford was forced to sell Philco due to some sort of monopoly thing.

Magnavox was bought by North Am. Philips also sometime in the late 70's. The original Magnavox company in Fort Wayne, Ind. continued to manufacture electronics for the military and cotinued to use the old Magnavox upper-and-lower case logo. Any Mag. product which has the MAGNAVOX name in all upper case was made by North American Philips I believe.

So are you saying that today's Philips sets that are built here are direct descendants of Mag? Last I checked, many Philips TVs are still manufactured in this country.

JVC is Japan Victor Corp. also called Nivico in the 60's (NIppon VIctor COrp.) There is some connection between it and Victor Talking Machine Co./RCA Victor but I don't know what it is.

Yep, I heard about that JVC/RCA connection. Something about Victor granting a license to the original Japanese company way back when.

That's all I can think of!

That's quite a bit Chad, thanks! Now if some more folks would be kind enough to fill in the pieces. Like Harvey and any other suppliers to private labels.

Anthony

I think that Philips (North American Philips) has phased out the Magnavox name and is just using Philips now...They were Philips-Magnavox for a while. As far as I know the products are being produced at the same factories, just using the parent company's name now.

Philips used to only use the Norelco name for their products in the U.S., there was some argument with Philco before Philips bought it. Norelco used to be used for cassette recorders, cassettes, maybe reel to reels, but now the name is only on electric razors as far as I know. I have an old 1940's or 50's Philips tube type radio plus some Philips records, but these may have been imports.

At the time I was in the market for my last new TV it came down to a choice between Sony and Philips. Decided on the Sony as they finally came out with an affordable flat screen.

Both brands were/are made in the US and that was a prime concern for me. Regardless, what is the consensus on the reliability/quality of these Philips sets today?

Anthony

GE/RCA-GE horsetraded the combined consumer electronics division with Thomson, getting in return Thomson's medical equipment division plus some cash. Thomson bought the RCA name but just licenses the GE name.

Philco-was sold by Ford to GTE (Sylvania)I have seen one or two GTE Philco labeled sets (which I assume might just be rebadged Sylvanias?) I know in the book "Iacocca" Lee mentioned that when he was running Ford he thought it was stupid that they were in the washing machine business, so he may have been behind dumping them.

I think Osram owns the Sylvania name, I think Funai just licenses it from them or maybe Philips? On the Osram-Sylvania website there is a very good history. Sylvania started out as a REBUILDER of light bulbs! (and nowadays we can't even get a crt rebuilt!)

Wells-Gardner is still alive and well, making video gaming and arcade equipment. From reading their online history it seems like Pac Man single handedly saved them, as they made all those arcade machines. I wonder who they were making tv sets for prior to that, as all the private label tv's I've seen from the late 60s on were easily traced to GE/RCA/Admiral.(or a foreign company)

Several other old companies are still around but got out of radio/tv years ago, including Arvin, Sparton, Automatic Radio...

Both Arvin and Sparton started out in the auto parts biz and are still plugging along. Arvin is owns Maremont and makes exhaust parts along with the Gabriel shock brand.

http://www.maremont.com/NewFiles/history_MRMT.htm
http://sparton.com/about/history/history.htm

So let's see, those 2 along with Crosley and Philco make at least 4 firms with direct ties to the auto industry. Interesting ain't it?
Anthony

Another thing which might be tied in with this thread is what companies may have made sets for other companies in foreign countries. For example, back in the 1950's, if I'm not mistaken, I think that Canadian Marconi marketed sets here in Canada. From what I have seen, I beleive these to be rebadged Emersons in many cases. I am not sure if such brands as Electrohome, etc, were available in the states. If not, did an american company make them or licence their chassis to electrohome? Also, does anybody know who made Viking (which was a store brand for the now defunct Eaton's chain?

Even today, it's common for companies who are still in business to have some products made for them by someone else. I've seen mid 90's Hitachi TVs that were made by Zenith (probably a rare case of an American TV company being an OEM for a Japanese company). Samsung has made VCRs for Toshiba and Sony had TV/VCR combos made for them by LG. I'm sure there are many other cases, but these are just a few that popped into my head.

i remember hitachi tvs that were rebadged ge's.
right down to the hitachi label over the ge on the crt.
funny because hitachi made most of those tubes for ge.


Originally posted by andy
Even today, it's common for companies who are still in business to have some products made for them by someone else. I've seen mid 90's Hitachi TVs that were made by Zenith (probably a rare case of an American TV company being an OEM for a Japanese company). Samsung has made VCRs for Toshiba and Sony had TV/VCR combos made for them by LG. I'm sure there are many other cases, but these are just a few that popped into my head.

Leafing through a pile of Sams I came across the file for an Electrohome color roundie from maybe '64 or so. A couple folders later (couple months later) there is a Truetone, same exact photo on the cover, very few differences beyond addresses,etc.

I worked for the old RCA SMirnoff Lab in Princeton as an "AMTS" when GE bought RCA. That was late 1985. A couple of years after RCA dropped about $600 million on that videodisc format that bombed. Today DVDs are very popular, go figure....
Ge was after RCA's defence contracting and TV network NBC. Consumer electronics they didn't really want that. Like when you have to buy an entire box of stuff that contains one or two items you desire, and the rest you toss....
As for the Smirnoff R&D lab, "R&D lab, we don't need no stinkin' R&D lab!" They were going to close it down but some politicians from New Jersey did some arm twisting (Sarnoff was to be the flagship of NJ's 'Silicon valley of the east'). They unloaded it on SRI International as a tax writeoff thing. But they still canned about half of us there. Guess having 11 patents didn't mean anything. It was a great place to work before GE; I'm still a bit mad at GE. Haven't bought any GE products since....:(

Nowadays "RCA" is a rather meaningless trademark.

I remember when they changed the name on the RCA building in Rockefeller Center to the GE building. To this day I refuse to refer to it as such....it was, is, and will always be the RCA building to me.

But then again, I'm the same guy who called all Nash/Hudson and AMC products "Ramblers".............same thing applies to Mopars, I'd generally just call 'em a Chrysler. I'm a name brand racist LOL

Anthony

Anthony,

The info at the link below might be of some help to you.

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

Originally posted by Charlie
Anthony,

The info at the link below might be of some help to you.

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

Thanks Charlie....hopefully in time more details will get added. Not a slam by any means! I appreciate all the work that people put into their sites.

Anthony