You hardly ever see Hotpoint consoles. Bet there weren't that many of them. Looks cool, but starting bid is 200 bucks!
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3269117905&category=3638

That is the Hotpoint version of this GE console (sorry, I only have the back view)

It's also the same basic internals as this GE I have been looking for: http://www.vintagetvsets.com/wanted.htm

Eric, my best friends grandmother had a GE set like that. B&W with a hardwired remote control. We used to watch "Where The Action Is" and "Hullabaloo" on it, because it had great audio. Had to be the largest oval speaker I've ever seen!

I have a console GE tv with this chassis and very large speaker. It is in good shape, but needs a back. If any one thinks that they may have one, I will post a picture.

You learn something new every day. I didn't realize there was such a TV brand as Hotpoint (until now I thought they only made home appliances), and was surprised also to find out that TV sets with the Hotpoint brand on them were actually manufactured by the original General Electric Company of Schenectady, New York.

BTW, speaking of TVs with huge loudspeakers (as one other person mentioned in this thread), this kind of audio system (with a powerful sound system to match) was fairly common in console TVs of 1950s-'60s vintage. My grandmother had a 1950 GE 16" console set with a 12" (IIRC) speaker; the audio from that set was great. She had the TV for some 21 years, until she finally bought a color set in 1971. Just goes to show how well made the original GE sets were. :thmbsp:

I had a Zenith 23" console in the late '60s (a trash day find in my hometown) with a large speaker in the base of its console cabinet as well, and its audio was every bit as good, if not better, than my grandmother's GE. My Zenith had a 6BN6 gated-beam sound detector and 6BQ5 output, with a tone control and an oval speaker at least 6x9. That set's audio system was so good I patched an FM tuner into it by feeding the tuner's audio output into the system via the TV's volume control (with blocking capacitors, of course), IIRC. Man, that tuner sounded great! That was back in the days when they still had good music on FM radio, and a lot fewer commercials (although the Super Bowl halftime show fiasco last year has caused broadcasters to make sweeping changes, with more to come--probably including the reinvocation of the NAB Television Code of Good Practice [remember that seal, shaped like a TV screen and shown on just about every old show from the '50s through the '70s as well as by local TV stations at sign on and sign off?] and tighter regulations on program content in general, possibly as early as this fall).

I also have a Zenith AM/FM radio of 1963 vintage, an ebay score last spring, in a heavy walnut table-model cabinet, with a 5x7 speaker (thought it was a 6x9 until I saw the Sams folder for it), 19T8 1st audio and detector, and 35C5 output. The sound from this thing is incredible for a table model, but that was why I bid on it--that and the looks of the cabinet (it matches the furniture in my apartment almost perfectly). :thmbsp: Sorry to say, they don't make them like that anymore. :(

BTW (2): I couldn't believe the size of the loudspeaker in the GE version of the Hotpoint set, the back of which is pictured in Eric's post. I'll bet that set had fantastic audio--the speaker has to be the largest oval-shaped loudspeaker I have ever seen in my life, bar none. :eek:! The magnet looks like it must weigh a couple pounds at least, as well; the set's audio system must have been powerful too, and well-built to boot. A great set to listen to those great early-1960s variety programs such as "Hullabaloo" (I have a videocassette of about a dozen of those old shows, which I taped from AMC a couple years ago), "Where the Action Is", "Upbeat" (a local rock-and-roll music show on channel 5 in Cleveland in the late '60s) and countless other musical and variety programs on. I used to watch those programs as a kid on my folks' Crosley Super V console, which had about, IIRC, an 8-inch speaker, but by the time I was 12 or 13 years old we had relegated that set to the basement, and replaced it in the living room with a 17" Silvertone all-channel portable with a speaker about the size, again IIRC, of a large transistor radio speaker (if it was that big, which, now that I think of it, I doubt very much). High-fidelity it wasn't, believe me. My Aiwa bookshelf stereo, and my Zenith AM/FM radio mentioned above, sound better than that TV probably ever did, which is why I patched the audio output of my cable box through the stereo. Sounds good, but the old sets with those huge speakers were, IMO, much better sounding than a lot of these small bookshelf stereo systems (including mine, with surround sound and an 8-band graphic equalizer, not to mention 240 watts of power and 3-way speakers with powered subwoofers). I'm only sorry I can't put better speakers on my stereo (Aiwa does not recommend that any other speakers than its own be used with any of its compact systems); oh, well. That's a story for another thread in AK's audio section.

Here are the pictures of the GE console that was on eBay a few years back.

Back view.

Coaxial.

If anyone runs on to a metal back like this, I need one for my GE of around the same era. It too has the giant speaker, but is not as cool looking as the one on ebay.