No one bought it last time

ebay #250271917255

Wonder if this set is restorable? Wonder what it will take to wipe the doody from the screen?

Ide get it, but it probably wouldnt survive the trip..

Steve

Why don't you just ask the seller?

I assumed it was a color printout stuck on (or under?) the safety glass.

Looks restorable otherwise, based on sketchy photos.

You understand this is not a color TV, right?

Phil

Yep. Other than some feeble, BARELY-operating lab prototypes, & CBS' ultimately still born system, there was NO color TV when that set was made.

Yeah Phil, im aware its an old B/W set :D

Looks like someone is taking a chance on the doody :)

Steve

I'd be willing to bet that when you unscrew the glass front, the Howdy Doody print-out just comes right out. Doesn't appear glued-in to me. Looks like an easy fix, and you'll probably get BOTH the TV AND the Howdy-Doody-on-a-TV-screen poster, which wouldn't be a bad thing to frame and hang over a vintage-TV repair bench...
:yes: :D

LOL! looks like me and dreyfoos were sluggin it out at the end...
Man my bids didnt even register.. must have low balled at a $61.27 max at the last second.

Good luck with it ma friend, take plenty of pics.. :D

Steve

Thanks Steve, I may need luck just to get it from Manysodas to Calleefornyuh. I'm still trying to find out if the back cover is available. It will need some careful double boxing to avoid snapping off that naked CRT neck. I may request Greyhound Express instead of UPS - if the seller can acommodate. You see Steve, I've got that dangerous urge to capture every surviving Philco 50T1403. I swore I'd never get another one - no space - but then I had to go and put in a winning bid which happened to be my top bid - looks like I had the minimum one dollar increment over the second bid - without a penny to spare - like I was meant to have it. Rotten luck - now it owns me. I can only hope that my "intervention" will keep you from going down that same dark, dank, hopeless path. I now publicly swear - never again - will I bid on a 50T1403. Unfortunately, they do seem to pop up often enough to severely test our resistance. I'm resolute - never again. If you bid on another one (and you will) just let me know - to remind me of my pledge to steer clear. And I will let you know of all the grief this one causes - with pix - when I get to it.

BTW, do you also happen to already have a ton of these?

Roger

LOL i was having that urge up to the last minute myself :D

its been awhile since the TV in my avatar and 2 delco radios i rebuilt so i was feelin the itch for a roundie this time. I was hesitating it up to the last 45 secs. I too was fearing the trip to CA. killing it also.. The urge won out at the last minute. But i lost...
The upside? a Fellow AKer got it :) Theres another one on the web with a square cabinet i have my eye on... We'll see who wins, me or "my urge" hehehe

Got my fingers crossed that it reaches you with its "doody" in tact :D
Steve

There is no power cord with this TV (therefore, the set is untested), so you'll have to find an interlock cord somewhere. I'm looking for such a cord for my Zenith K731 radio, but haven't found one yet. It's been some time since I've seen a TV in the trash around here, with or without a power cord (the new sets all seem to have the cord hard-wired into the circuitry, no interlock), so I guess I'll just have to keep looking. One of these days.....

To Steve and all,

I'm going to make a painfully long story out of this. Be warned!

So here's the update: both the good and the bad.

Howdy...Doody...the caper

As Sam Spade might have said, "The curvaceous Philco 50T1403 was pretty well packed - for shipping, that is." Double boxing helped it to survive UPS - which is never any mean feat. And the packing was bubble sheet so I didn't have all the styro peanut mess.

The bad: the end of the original Philco 12LP4 was bare - no socket, no base, and a nice little hole where the tipoff had been snapped. First, I cried a little. Then, I found the wired socket with an intact base still plugged in. It was nestled behind some packing material. The socket itself had the usual few wraps of some mummifed black vinyl tape but was otherwise intact. So, Sherlock put on his deerstalker hat and went to work. I was sure that it wasn't UPS' fault - this time - because I found the socket and base, intact, behind the packing material. You may recall that in the listing picture, the socket and base area appeared normal, intact. So, it was time to alert the seller and see what he had to say regarding the hidden damage.

Meanwhile, I ruminated. Could the damage have occured during its photo session? Could the packer have damaged it? Not likely. To break the tip off one would have had to go through that intact base. So, Watson, how did it become hidden damage?

Elementary: Most likely, whoever owned it, before the eBay seller, perhaps many years ago, had used his pliers to put the tube to air and make that backless babe safe for the kiddies. It may well have already had a loose base. Someone with more than average knowledge of CRT's found the base loose and just twirled it until the wires broke. Then, he had easy access to the tipoff. Pshhhhhhhhh h h h h h h h......

He then stuffed it all back together and taped it to cover his tracks - or for display purposes. By the time it reached the seller's photographer (X years later) the tape was dried out and nothing was really holding it on but some lucky friction arising from the tangle of broken wire inside the base.

As it proceeded to the packing department there must have been enough jostling for the base to fall off and the packer thought that the base was just some decoration and he could tuck it in before he put on the next layer of bubble. The seller reported that the packer noticed the socket/base situation but never reported it. That's their story - and I'm swallowin' it.

Now, the good stuff. One could treat this as a cold case or a hot case because there's one little additional tidbit of information. And I know that this is what all two of you have been waiting for. I removed the plastic safety glass mask to separate Howdy from the Doody. Turns out that Howdy is a very high quality copy on Epson Professional Paper. So, the Howdy was a relatively recent mod. Seems to me that the condition of the almost brittle vinyl tape must go back to a time before Epson had such a quality copy capability. Was the taper and the Howdy maker one and the same person? All I know is that there was no butler involved.

That's as elementary as I can make it my dear Watson,

It all became moot for me when I negotiated a $50 refund from the seller. So, I end up with a pretty good cabinet, a clean, rust-free chassis, a set of slightly used tubes, and most of the knobs. I can't complain - no mouse doody. I don't believe there was any intention to hide the damage and ebay is always a bit like a pull on a slot machine lever anyway.

Small bit of good news. Because the tube was allowed to go to air slowly, the phospor screen appears to be intact - no visible damage.

Save your duds, the South will rise again. For now - there's Scotty.

Roger

WOW...... now thats a story.. :D

I looked at those pics on ebay... i THOUGHT that CRT was intact as well..

Im glad the seller was cool enough to refund some money.

Besides the "doody pic" covering the "doody crt" sounds like ya got a promising project.

Now gather round... its story time... see subject "a nightmare on emerson street"

Steve