I was at the thrift today and spotted an immaculate 1989 RCA Colortrak 2000 27" Tabletop.

It was completely dead but for $7.00 it would have been fun to take it home and tinker with.

They had a slightly less clean 1987 Colortrak that worked but had a greenish picture.

This place always has nice 20+ year old SS sets for $20 or less usually, including several nice Sony's I had to leave.

I feel the same way. There is an independent thrift shop here in SD that sells older SS sets for only 5 bucks a piece! Its a great way to fuel the hobby by fixing them up and selling them for a reasonable price.

I got a minty 20" late 80s trinitron with a strong CRT for 5 bucks yesterday. wish more places were like this and had some good old sets.

You're lucky. I have to really search around to find an old set. But once in a while some good ones show up in the trash. In fact, I found a few '87 CTC-130 colortraks this way. In the distant future, these may be collectible sets. Think about it- they are just about the last good sets of the 80s. Even though there were Thomson-built GE brand ones, the Colortrak sets were generally quality tv's until the early 90s or so.

Not a lot of older sets around New Orleans either - saw a 19" color set with knobs from the 70's - some Asian off-brand - in a thrift store last week. Recently I found three console sets from the 70's-80's on the curb near my bank, but they had been flooded in Katrina 3 years ago - I doubt anything was salvageable after saltwater intrusion.

Yesterday, I went to look at a house for sale and it was unlocked - looks like nobody had been in it in ten years. From the front door I could see a c.1980 Quasar color console and a mid-80's Zenith Space Command digital tuned console (a very wide one in fact.)