***Edited to remove content***

An article written for potential fish-tankers states almost incidentally: TV tubes up until about 1960 do not have integral implosion protection. These can be extremely dangerous, because they can implode very violently. You'll notice a label on all tubes that are less volatile that says something like, "This tube provides integral implosion protection." If you don't see that, don't mess with it.
This would eliminate from their consideration virtually all sets of any real interest or value to serious collectors.

Sorry about posting the email address. I didnt realize it would get my post edited, i was kidding about the spamming part. It just irks me that people try to make a quick buck by stripping what probably would be a perfectly restorable vintage TV set to make something they think is "hip" or "retro chic." It will end up in a dumpster in ten years when the fad dies. Nobody's going to want a water damaged, empty cabinet that smells of old aquarium.

yes, well, i think i just may send my RCA to them since i can't get it working

Same with my Zenith.....

http://home.comcast.net/~myersjacob/front.jpg
This Motorola b/w television was left in my house by the former owners. I tried to power it up and measured zero voltage on the transformer output. I guess that it's fried. I don't know exactly what model it is, even, because all I have is a partial model number (which is how I'm fairly certain that it's b/w). I have almost no desire to dig for a service manual or to figure out what else is wrong with it.

The idea of restoring the circuit is appealing but I'd rather have a TV that I can actually use (with modern inputs). The medial edge of the left 'foot' is broken (see below) so I don't think that's it's 'worth' restoring. The grille cloth and the rest of the cabinet are pretty good, though, so I'm planning to part it out and keep the cabinet. I'll have to measure once it's torn down but it looks like I should be able to shoehorn a 25" CRT in there...

http://home.comcast.net/~myersjacob/damage.jpg
Moving accident? Probably. This thing weighs a ton!

Oh man, how much I HATE people who turn vintage televisions into fishtanks!:nono:

what about vintage cars turned into hotrods, 351cu in engines in a jaguar XJ6, modern kitchens in a 80 year old house, ocean liners into nightclubs?

I have a Motorola about that same age. Nice cabinet. I brought it home, like so many others I have brought home, because I felt sorry for it. It was on the way to the landfill. I saved it. Now, nobody, nobody, nobody, despite years of trying, will come and take it from me. That is why I understand when folks have to part these out. If there was any demand it would be different, but even rabid collectors won't save a set like this when it comes right down to it.

If this set has to be parted out, it would be nice if someone could at least get the crt. Assuming it's good, someone can use it.

*sigh*

Have you guys actually considered emailing these people and asking them if you can buy the remnants of the gutted TVs?

Sure they keep the cabinets, and you get parts. Seems win win to me.

Evan

I could see if these things were still being produced, but there are only so many of them alot of times sets that are still in good electronic condition are hacked apart for this purpose. Ive seen the remnants of these oh so hip "tvtanks" dumped at flea markets and vintage shops numerous times. Either the novelty wears off, or the cabinet begins to split and swell from all the exess moisture it was never designed to handle, the inside covered in mold. What really gets me is when an otherwise rare, desirable set, especially early color sets like the CTC-5 are gutted by someone who didn't know, nor care to find out what they had. Yes, ive actually seen a CTC-5 fishtanked, at some hipster "vintage chic" store on Lorain aveue in Cleveland. I practically cried. The Joke's on them though, because they would have been able to get more for it in as found condition then they ever will as a piece of "art". Kid in the store said they gutted it with a couple of hammers and a crowbar.

Speaking of extra TV's, If anyone is looking to get rid of a mid 50's- early 60's b&w consolette I'd be glad to take it. I need a decent sized TV for the bedroom, but cant fit a full size console in my tiny room, let alone up the stairs. A zenith would be great. I've had great luck with them. The set in my sig sees daily use.

what about my 21-T639

[QUOTE=fsjonsey;Kid in the store said they gutted it with a couple of hammers and a crowbar

Wow, the thought of that really burns me. I'd like to take the hammer to a couple of LCD's in its memory.

Yeah that was foolish of them, kinda like the old 70's fad of turning antique western electric telephones into lamps. Nothing is quite like the shock when a person hears that their $30 candlestick phone lamp would have been worth $500 if they didn't drill a hole through the middle of it.:nono:

Yeah that was foolish of them, kinda like the old 70's fad of turning antique western electric telephones into lamps. Nothing is quite like the shock when a person hears that their $30 candlestick phone lamp would have been worth $500 if they didn't drill a hole through the middle of it.:nono:

I've seen those in antique malls with $150 price tags. I always thought the phones were fake. Wow, what a waste.

I don't know how the Fad started, some commercial manufacturers made a few lamps that looked like phones. but many a home craftsman did it themselves. Here's a couple of pics from fleabay.

The silliest thing about a TV fishtank conversion is practicality.

Water weighs something like 8.3 pounds per gallon. A 10-gallon fishtank will approach 100 pounds when loaded up with gravel, water, heater, filter, and airpump. A 20-gallon tank will approach 200 pounds.

I had aquaria for years, and can testify that you really, really don't want to try moving a full aquarium. Old-fashioned aquaria with metal frames are somewhat robust, but modern aquaria are basically sheets of glass stuck together with silicone seal, with a thin plastic frame or no frame at all.

You need to access an aquarium daily to feed your fish, perhaps weekly to clean gunk off the inside, mess with the filters, top off or change the water, and so on.

Most TV fishtanks show the TV pushed up against a wall, like a normal TV. Which makes it impossible to feed your fish or maintain the aquarium, unless you have mounted the cabinet on heavy rubber-tired casters or you are Plasticman and can bend your 1/2-inch diameter arms around very tight spaces.

If your TV fishtank is not mounted on casters, and you try to slide it out from the wall, you will either splash a lot of water out of the aquarium or just bust the tank.

The only way I can see this working is if you saw off the cabinet top so that it's removable. Even then, the humidity from all that nice heated water will quickly do a number on the cabinet joints, veneer, etc.

Phil Nelson

Maybe we should link our sites together, so we could try to prevent truly valuable tv's from being destroyed, and getting the chassis parts from the not so rare or valuable. we could give tech tips on installing old computers and monitors with fish tank screen savers into the the cabinets, and how to make it reversible if needed.

Aaargh! What they did to those poor old telephones? That looks even WORSE than turning a 50's TV into an aquarium! What a piece of crap! That thing is of an absurd bad taste, it simply looks so ridiculous, ir's very hard to imagine how THAT could ever have been "fashionable" !

Maybe we should link our sites together, so we could try to prevent truly valuable tv's from being destroyed, and getting the chassis parts from the not so rare or valuable. we could give tech tips on installing old computers and monitors with fish tank screen savers into the the cabinets, and how to make it reversible if needed.

That might not be a bad idea.
We might want to edit the title of this thread first though. :scratch2:

That might not be a bad idea.
We might want to edit the title of this thread first though. :scratch2:
Education is a good thing. Yeah, seeing that site just got me steamed.

I still don't have a working link to the site!

that is a good thing, i would have burst an artery

When I was a teenager I had one of those telephones. Still have it packed away somewhere, in parts. They finished it off by painting it a garish gold. The woman who sold it to me said it was made that way by the phone company. Sure. Well, I suspect those phones were available dirt cheap for many, many years. Sorta like 50s tv sets are now.

The best sounding and most trouble free phone in my house is one of those 60's/70/s black rotary "phone company" phones. Remember how we all had rented phones wired into our wall by a tech who came out to install them. I remember thinking it was a big deal when the "tech" came out and installed the little plug in ends on the wire so we could buy and install our own phones. I bet that saved the phone companies a TON of money. We still kept the same ones for years. Yes, they are still around CHEAP. I see that changing as time moves along. For both telephones and 50's TV's.

You can still lease a basic black rotary phone from AT&T
http://www.clientleasingservices.com/products/corded.html

I have a Motorola about that same age. Nice cabinet. I brought it home, like so many others I have brought home, because I felt sorry for it. It was on the way to the landfill. I saved it. Now, nobody, nobody, nobody, despite years of trying, will come and take it from me. That is why I understand when folks have to part these out. If there was any demand it would be different, but even rabid collectors won't save a set like this when it comes right down to it.

If this set has to be parted out, it would be nice if someone could at least get the crt. Assuming it's good, someone can use it.

When I do get around to parting it out, I'll see that the components which test "good" are posted on here. The rest, I imagine, will be used artistically.

And speaking of rotary phones; my favorite phone is a rotary that I found in a dumpster. It still had the four-prong plug on it (it's in a parts box somewhere). It worked perfectly until the dialing mechanism broke. I want to try using the microphone element for recording...

I would have a landline just so I could have a rotary phone... but with a cell phone, I can't justify having a landline.. *sigh*