They must be irritated at all the people who are trying to sell used TV's for inflated prices.

http://jackson.craigslist.org/ele/1832693899.html

Here's the text of the listing just in case it gets pulled.

"Is your two year old TV that is in great condition for $300 kind of like this one?
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Emerson-LC320EM1/14237649?sourceid=1500000000000003260360&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=14237649


Newsflash for anyone else selling a TV. Electronics, televisions in particular depreciate in value very rapidly. If you paid $3k for a television on an impulse buy 3 years ago, then you not only probably overpaid but it is worth a whole lot less than you think now.

Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Target, Sears and many other electronic stores have entry level 50" plasma televisions for about $600. 50" LCD flat panels for about $800. Tube televisions are all but like trying to sell a black and white TV, people don't want them.

If you are trying to sell a high dollar Television, how about putting a model number in your post!"

So true... I was walking through the Wal-Mart electronics section yesterday and looking at all the flat-screens, LCD's, plasmas, whatever they call them now. I can clearly remember just a couple years back when they were still selling CRT's and big-screen projection tv's for $700 and up. At the reasonable prices I'm seeing on these nice flat-screen tv's, no one's going to be getting anywhere near what they paid for their old tv, regardless of condition.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a CRT-guy myself. I just wish that more people would wise up to this and start pricing things accordingly. Even those who are selling their grandmother's vintage television set have to realize that there's only so many people with the time, money, interest, and room for these things. Over the years, better televisions have ended up in the garbage than what I often see being listed for hundreds of dollars on some of these websites.

I LOL'd. :lmao:

There are a ton of good deals on CRT sets these days.

Last weekend I was at Goodwill and they had gobs of CRT sets, including good brand names from 36" down and I don't think any were over $60

The Salvation Army is even starting to get some earlier model widescreen HDTV's
They had a Mitsubishi last week and this week it was an RCA, both were 1080 capable, the RCA for sure had an HDMI connector so it wasn't too ancient.

My friend, who sells stuff at the flea market, went to some yard sales in an attempt to find things to flip. He said he saw plenty 19" TV's that worked fine for $5 and $10. Did he buy any of them? Nope, because we already have TV's that no one is interested in. He bought one 13" TV/VCR combo for $2 that was supposed to be broken; but, it turns out that the channels only needed to be programmed into it's channel memory. He said that if he could get $20 for it, he'd be real happy. He did see a 12" B&W at a yard sale for $15. He tried to reason with the woman who had it; but, she let him know that the price was $15, take it or leave it. She probably thought that if a working TV wasn't worth $15 to someone; then, they don't need a TV. I can understand that; but, I can also understand that with current TV trends, you'd be lucky to give away a 12" B&W.

There's only one type of person, besides collectors, that will buy a CRT TV - the type who can not afford anything else. Just the other day, someone called me to see if I had any TV's. He said he'd just moved to town, didn't have a lot of money, and just wanted something to watch. He said all that the stores had were flat panel sets that he couldn't afford and the pawn shops wanted a minimum of $150 for anything they had. I had a 19" 2004 BPC Symphonic and an '88 19" Sony Trinitron in a woodgrain plastic case. I had both TV's connected to the DTV converter and, of course, the old Sony had the best picture and that's the one he bought for $30. I used to get more than that for a 19" B&W and there was a time when I never sold a 19" remote/cable ready color TV for less than $100.

I wonder how long it will be before we can buy 32" flat panels for $99 at wal-mart?

Whatever, I'll just keep using my old tube TV's that no one else wants.

if you want a tv you can just drive around before garbage pickup.

I got a perfect 32" stereo tv with built in digital tuner. guy had just put it out on the curb, I asked he said sure, and even offered to help me put it in the back of the truck.

He told me it worked fine and it does, nice pic no issues at all.

if they dont work its prob just a 75cent cap that can be quickly found with a ESR meter. That was my other freebe, another 32" stereo around 2005 vintage.

This is good for the people that cannot afford the new biggist and baddest flatscreens (which in my opinion wont last as long as the freee CRT they just trashpicked). Like me, I see these 27" and 32" CRT sets all over the curbs lately. Working with a free sign on them.

As for the Walmart sets, I agree, entry level sets. My brother bought one in 2007. Dead. I just got done replacing 15 or so lytics in the PS to det it working again. But the blue and green lines running down the screen kinda are hard to ignore. This was a Walmart $500 dollar set too. Made by ILO.


if you want a tv you can just drive around before garbage pickup.

I got a perfect 32" stereo tv with built in digital tuner. guy had just put it out on the curb, I asked he said sure, and even offered to help me put it in the back of the truck.

He told me it worked fine and it does, nice pic no issues at all.

if they dont work its prob just a 75cent cap that can be quickly found with a ESR meter. That was my other freebe, another 32" stereo around 2005 vintage.

Yeah, some people don't understand that cheap entry level TV's often mean something that will crap out before you know what hit you. It's like me Brother-in-law that kept buying the cheapest no name DVD players that he could find all because he does not want to spend any money. Then, he was complaining about how they crapped out after a month. I told him that he'd stand a better chance of getting something that would last if he'd spend a little more money. You're not saving any money if you're constantly buying cheap garbage that you are having to replace every time you turn around.

As far as me picking up free TV's, I just love getting non-working sets from individuals who have not taken them to a shop. Those are generally the easy fixes that I can knock out in 30 minutes (or less).

Ha, the ad made me laugh.:D

On a more serious note, I just don't think it's fair what flat panel technology has done to CRT sets. They'd been glowing in our households for nearly a century, when all of a sudden, a new-fangled device shows up, and the CRTs are unceremoniously shown the door. :no: Before LCD sets were commonplace, big CRT sets could get you quite a high price. Now, you're lucky if you can give them away. I find them on the curb all too often, most with only small problems (magnet put to the screen, bad speaker surrounds, etc.) and sometimes, working perfectly. I'm annoyed at the folks who cut off the power cords, presumably to deter someone from getting a free TV. It never stopped me, though. :D Part of my residence has become a makeshift TV orphanage, where unwanted/discarded sets have a place to stay until they get 'adopted out'. There's even the 'kids' who will always live here, the ones with terminal problems that no one would want to buy, but still work. My mom calls it TV Land. :D

I'm one of those guys that will never abandon CRT technology, and just fly in the face of what all the new guys think. I just bought a Sony Trinitron KV-40XBR800 for the bedroom gaming rig. :thmbsp:

(have a cookie if you read it all. :D)

I want my cookie. lol

Part of my residence has become a makeshift TV orphanage, where unwanted/discarded sets have a place to stay until they get 'adopted out'. There's even the 'kids' who will always live here, the ones with terminal problems that no one would want to buy, but still work. My mom calls it TV Land. :D


I've referred to my place as a "radio/tv rescue mission". I keep saying I won't drag anything else home, and I have gotten better about it...but some stuff just cries out to me! I posted not long ago about a yard full of TV sets that showed up down the road-maybe a dozen TV sets, mostly 70s/80s consoles. That's probably been 2 months ago-and they are still out there! I grabbed the lone tube-chassis set (a $ervice $aver) before the rain got them...not that I wouldn't love to see a horizontal chassis solid state Zenith saved, or a black faceplate crt Sylvania from the mid-70s, but I simply don't have the space. If I were single, though, I suppose every one of those sets would have followed me home by now!

As silly as some of these prices we see might be, the market will correct them, and it will be more cruel than we ever could.

Ha, the ad made me laugh.:D

On a more serious note, I just don't think it's fair what flat panel technology has done to CRT sets.

I agree. And, I also don't think it's fair how the bottom fell out of CRT set prices over the last 15-20 years. There was a time when this town was full of TV shops and all of them stayed busy repairing old and new TV's. And, one could sell just about any kind of working TV for decent money. Then, 19" color TV's went from costing $300 down to $150 and then down to $89 for a brand new set. It even got to the point where a 27" set could be bought new for less than $200. And, VCR's went from costing several hundred $ down to $39.99 for the "last gasp" models. With prices that low, most people are not going to pay to have an old TV repaired and they're certainly not going to pay any decent money for a used TV. Back when I first started picking up old TV's to fix and resell (around '90), I could get anywhere between $20 and $30 for a 12" B&W, $30-$40 for a 19" B&W, $40-$50 for a 13" color TV (have gotten as much as $85 for a 13" color set), $50-$85 for a 19" non-remote color set, $100+ for a 19" remote/cable ready set, $150-$200 for most 25"/27" table sets, and $100-$200 for most 23"/25"/27" consoles. And, I didn't have to sit on them for six months to get those prices. I've got a friend, who started selling used TV's in the late '60's, and he claimed he could get more than I was getting. He siad that he's sold 19" B&W sets for $100. And, people didn't bitch about how old the set looked or it's lack of features. All they cared about was the picture. When I first started letting my friend from the flea market sell TV's for me, he could sell them like hotcakes. He would take several TV's up on Thursday, sell them, and come by the house on his way home to get more for Friday, and the process would repeat itself for Saturday. Now, he's got one 19" set of mine that's been there for 3 months and people either walk right on by or give him the "I'll be back next Friday when I get my check" line.

Now, there are only 2 or 3 TV shops left and they mostly only work on flat panel sets. It finally got to the point where people would go crazy if I asked $50 for a nice remote controlled color 19" TV. I'd usually hear, "$50! I can buy a brand new one for $79!" I used to try and explain that the used TV that I had was a better made set than the $79 disposable set from wal-mart; but, it usually did no good. All most consumers see is a cheap price and they don't care that it will only last 2 years. I finally stopped trying to explain anything and I'd just tell them to run on down there and get one of those $79 sets.

Now, I often get depressed when I even think about working on an old TV to sell. I often look at the set and think to myself, "I'm going to spend my time and mony repairing this thing, only to have these SOB's call me up and whine when they find out it's not HD and/or it's over 1 year old and then it will sit here for six months before someone will actually give me any sort of decent money for it".

The days when electronics were quality made and priced accordingly need to come back, although I know I'm dreaming.

Just a guess here but a hard depression would prob change a few minds. Not trying to get political here at all, but as things get tight as economic cycles do, then I suspect a nice working CRT set with a pair of rabbit ears may start looking like a good alternative to a wiz bang non working flat panel and a 150$ a month cable bill.

This is what burns me about the FCC changing the format, I know a lot of folks like digital tv and all but I am not convinced it works better in fringe areas so you are screwed if you dont live near a good transmitter, not to mention the fact that the old analog signal system worked GREAT for so long.

For me I cant see buying a flat panel tv in the forseeable future. I find most of the programming I want to see is not in the right format since I prefer shows from the 70's and older.

the fact that we have been living off the manufacturing base that our parents and grand parents built up is coming to an end, Most of it has been sold off and we are now a service based economy, with not much left to pass on to the future.

I bought a pair of aligator clip jumpers the other day, with the intention to make a universal tube adapter. They looked old and I assumed made in USA, wrong, China.

I slipped the boot back, no solder, poor crimp, loose strands barely in contact with the clip. then the pin fell out that held it together.

What a piece of crap. Last night I was going over a simpson 260 VOM, picked up cheap at a swap meet. Built like a tank, and I am sure it was expensive in its day, but worth every penny of it.

Not a good thing the way we headed.

Ditto... I feel for the teen and children generation growing up now! I look at my 16 month old daughter and wonder where life is going to take her. Even I growing up saw the end of the manufacturing era.. It's sad and I so wish that things couold be different. My family business still manufactures cutting tools to the aircraft industry. Grandfather, father, and myself. Three generations working under one roof. I have been taught most of everything my grandfather knows. This has been a business running for 60 years under the same principle. Sure it's changed a bit, but still we are a company devoted to pride and quality that have been implemented since 1950. It's hard labor and stessfulL, but is that not what we get paid to do? We seem to be a dying breed with manufacturing being sent to China and beyond, sadly, but I will fight 'til im six feet under to keep our jobs right here in the USA. Under bidding from overseas seem to be becoming popular everywhere, more and more like the plague, and the sad thing is, it's winning.
Thats my rant.
Shawn

P.S. Don't even get me started on OTA digital transmission, as I have had my belly full of this pixelating, freezeframing dropout shi@ as it is. Bring back analog so at least the people a little too far from a transmitter that don't have alot of money to go to *chain stores* and buy some outrageous amount of cash for some Chinese built BS antenna to find out it didn't help the signal, if another catastrophe happens and everyone needs to see whats going on.

Of course, excuse me if I got a little too political. Just a 33 year old with a head on his shoulders, and I never speak my mind on the forum.


Just a guess here but a hard depression would prob change a few minds. Not trying to get political here at all, but as things get tight as economic cycles do, then I suspect a nice working CRT set with a pair of rabbit ears may start looking like a good alternative to a wiz bang non working flat panel and a 150$ a month cable bill.

This is what burns me about the FCC changing the format, I know a lot of folks like digital tv and all but I am not convinced it works better in fringe areas so you are screwed if you dont live near a good transmitter, not to mention the fact that the old analog signal system worked GREAT for so long.

For me I cant see buying a flat panel tv in the forseeable future. I find most of the programming I want to see is not in the right format since I prefer shows from the 70's and older.

the fact that we have been living off the manufacturing base that our parents and grand parents built up is coming to an end, Most of it has been sold off and we are now a service based economy, with not much left to pass on to the future.

I bought a pair of aligator clip jumpers the other day, with the intention to make a universal tube adapter. They looked old and I assumed made in USA, wrong, China.

I slipped the boot back, no solder, poor crimp, loose strands barely in contact with the clip. then the pin fell out that held it together.

What a piece of crap. Last night I was going over a simpson 260 VOM, picked up cheap at a swap meet. Built like a tank, and I am sure it was expensive in its day, but worth every penny of it.

Not a good thing the way we headed.

I want my cookie. lol

Here ya go: http://www.mrsfields.com/ :D

Wow, you guys think the same way I do. I too remember when I could go into my local Sam's Club, and the shelves were full of big CRT sets. I saw my first widescreen Trinitron there, what a cool set. Now, it's all flat panels. I don't even see rear projectors anymore. The last time I bought a CRT set new was from that Sam's; a 13-inch Sylvania for $69, around 2003. I also remember walking through Target right when the flat sets were showing up, putting deep discounts on the CRTs. I think I remember seeing a 32-inch Panasonic for around $80. :tears:

Here ya go: http://www.mrsfields.com/ :D

Wow, you guys think the same way I do. I too remember when I could go into my local Sam's Club, and the shelves were full of big CRT sets. I saw my first widescreen Trinitron there, what a cool set. Now, it's all flat panels. I don't even see rear projectors anymore. The last time I bought a CRT set new was from that Sam's; a 13-inch Sylvania for $69, around 2003. I also remember walking through Target right when the flat sets were showing up, putting deep discounts on the CRTs. I think I remember seeing a 32-inch Panasonic for around $80. :tears:

You mentioned buying a new 13" for $69. I've sold used ones for more. Back around '93, I had a clean knob tuned 13" Zenith that I'd replaced the 9-160 module in it. I sold that one for $85 and the guy didn't hesitate when I told him the price. A few years later, I had a 13" knob tuned GE that just got a new flyback and I was able to get $75 for that one. Another friend had one of those 13" TX82 chassis RCA's that was cable ready and remote controlled. I was at his house one afternoon when a lady showed up to look at what he had for sale. She fell in love with that 13" set and when he told her the price was $125, she pulled out the money and walked away with the set. At that time, I think you could buy those little RCA's for not much more than $125.

My ballpark got hit with the 100 year storm a few weeks ago and we blew out 40 flats in outside spaces, some of which had been up for 7 seasons. Not to mention the two broadcast cameras that blew over.

I had spares but fell about 10 short. I wanted a specific brand that we have an ad deal with. My mfr could not do them for a month or more. Web sites for same mfr showed few sets in my smaller sizes at the big stores. Visits to the big retailers could not find them at all. The local "best" retail manager told me that my brand does not compete at the smaller screen price point vs. the house brand and they do not bother to carry them. I bought the house brand out of the ad deal budget and will wait for the mfr sets and then pull the house brand for I don't know what. $2500 wasted.

Maybe I'm just weird, but I kinda wish frontal projection systems were more mainstream.
I don't recall EVER seeing anything of the sort in stores.

Well, I guess there is one good thing about CRTs being phased out (I guess you could say) is that they're now darn cheap. Perfect for the economy, right? A better looking, more solid TV for much less :p
I think the last TV I actually bought (not given to me) was a 24" Zenith from the early 80's. It was $4 and really fit nicely with the decore of my living room at the time.

After having a frontal projection system I don't think I'd want a traditional TV. The one downfall to the CRT's is the size.. for people with small living quarters (such as myself) its nice to have something that lays flat against the wall. Or, in my case, a 1ft cube sitting on top of two old computer cases.

Modern CRT sets, to me at least, didn't seem all that nice anyway. I'd much rather have one of these old sets you guys work on over something modern.
The old stuff just has that bit of charm...

I rescued a little 13-inch Craig color set today. I was at Goodwill, messing around with a (mostly) BPC Denon receiver and some cheap Kenwood speakers. Nearby was a neat row of three CRT computer monitors, with the Craig set at the far right. I was walking around the store later and passed by the open employee-only entrance, and saw said monitors, all three of them, tossed into a crate, to be then tossed into a dumpster out back. I then noticed a staff member going for the 13-inch set, so I quickly grabbed it and asked if I could buy it. ($6.99, the price was still on it) Apparently, these four CRTs had been out on the floor for almost three weeks without selling, so staff figured they should just put them out to pasture. I really didn't need another TV set, but I really couldn't bear to see this little guy tossed on his head in a dumpster!

I got it home, and, not surprisingly, it works fine, has great color for its lineage and age. (1992) It's pretty grubby and will need a good cleaning, but that's not a big deal, now is it? Better sitting around here than in pieces in a landfill. :music:

Photo, pre-cleaning:

http://www.wolfness.com/up/files/Craig%2013.jpg

I just thought this was relevant to the CRT's plight, even though I went off on a tangent again. Here, now you all get a cookie. :D

I remember the disbelief when my wife told me she paid $70 for her 2003 19" Broksonic color remote TV. $70 for a new TV?

Of course, at the time I was watching a POS 1981 Quasar console I paid $10 for. The particle board cabinet had gotten wet at the bottom and would regularly "shed" from behind the lower trim. Picture was lousy too - probably a weak CRT. Come to think about it, I have never paid more than $25 for a set.

I rescued a little 13-inch Craig color set today. I was at Goodwill, messing around with a (mostly) BPC Denon receiver and some cheap Kenwood speakers. Nearby was a neat row of three CRT computer monitors, with the Craig set at the far right. I was walking around the store later and passed by the open employee-only entrance, and saw said monitors, all three of them, tossed into a crate, to be then tossed into a dumpster out back. I then noticed a staff member going for the 13-inch set, so I quickly grabbed it and asked if I could buy it. ($6.99, the price was still on it) Apparently, these four CRTs had been out on the floor for almost three weeks without selling, so staff figured they should just put them out to pasture. I really didn't need another TV set, but I really couldn't bear to see this little guy tossed on his head in a dumpster!

I got it home, and, not surprisingly, it works fine, has great color for its lineage and age. (1992) It's pretty grubby and will need a good cleaning, but that's not a big deal, now is it? Better sitting around here than in pieces in a landfill. :music:

Photo, pre-cleaning:

http://www.wolfness.com/up/files/Craig%2013.jpg

I just thought this was relevant to the CRT's plight, even though I went off on a tangent again. Here, now you all get a cookie. :D

Two ironies: I have rarely seen/heard of the Craig name on TV sets, but today there was one in the paper, just like this one, for $35.

The other-I had to stop off a box of stuff to the Goodwill; not really my favorite place to donate stuff but it was by far the closest. I went over to the little alcove in the back where they take stuff and there, on the floor, having just been dropped off, were 2 TV sets: a 19" Sony from the 70s-I'm not a big fan of Trinitrons but this one was very clean and had a nice look to it; and beside it, a 13" Chromacolor II! Also very clean, probably from the same house. (somebody who had bought quality) So, I wait around for a couple minutes until somebody comes in and I ask about them, letting the guy know that I will gladly buy them even if they don't work. No dice. They simply have to go through the standard procedure, end of discussion. That means, if they work they will end up on the floor (overpriced, no doubt), if they have as much as a vertical roll, in the dumpster they go. Grrrrr! I have sent polite letters to the manager here before to no avail. I looked around front and they had one piece of electronics for sale in the store, a BPC 19" that looked like it could have come from a crackhouse.

Guess I'll try and stop in again sometime over the weekend, keeping my fingers crossed. Not that I need another set, but these are too nice to destroy.

Two ironies: I have rarely seen/heard of the Craig name on TV sets, but today there was one in the paper, just like this one, for $35.

The other-I had to stop off a box of stuff to the Goodwill; not really my favorite place to donate stuff but it was by far the closest. I went over to the little alcove in the back where they take stuff and there, on the floor, having just been dropped off, were 2 TV sets: a 19" Sony from the 70s-I'm not a big fan of Trinitrons but this one was very clean and had a nice look to it; and beside it, a 13" Chromacolor II! Also very clean, probably from the same house. (somebody who had bought quality) So, I wait around for a couple minutes until somebody comes in and I ask about them, letting the guy know that I will gladly buy them even if they don't work. No dice. They simply have to go through the standard procedure, end of discussion. That means, if they work they will end up on the floor (overpriced, no doubt), if they have as much as a vertical roll, in the dumpster they go. Grrrrr! I have sent polite letters to the manager here before to no avail. I looked around front and they had one piece of electronics for sale in the store, a BPC 19" that looked like it could have come from a crackhouse.

Guess I'll try and stop in again sometime over the weekend, keeping my fingers crossed. Not that I need another set, but these are too nice to destroy.

You can't deal with these clowns. What they do put out on the floor is usually overpriced and they'd rather throw something out than give it to someone who can use it or sell it for less than what they think it's worth.

There was a time I could deal with the local SA as the managers would negotiate prices on older stuff and they would save broken TV's for me and I'd usually buy them for $5/each. Of course, they quickly relieved those managers of their duties and replaced them with some dragon lady with "business sense". She is the type that will toss something before she'll sell it for less than what it's worth and I tried to get her to sell me the broken TV's that come in. She let me know that they didn't have time to be saving broken TV's for me and that they would go in the dumpster. The last straw was when she lied about the working condition of a beat up, overpriced '60's Zenith stereo console and then talked down to me like I was some sort of idiot. I ended up writing a letter to the major of the SA over that one, to which I never got a reply. I will NOT, repeat, will NOT go in any thrift store here because I know I'll probably see something I want and it will either be 10 times overpriced or I'll experience something similar to what you did and end up getting PO'ed. So, it's just best for me to stay out of these places.

Was in a Goodwill far from home where I have seen fair prices. The cashier told me I should come back tomorrow afternoon, as their electronics guy will be there putting out a bunch of stuff. Well, I'm not driving 75 miles back there.

The closer Goodwill with the 50 y/o "Electronics Boy" had an early 90's Zenith System 3 console for $40. They also had a high-end Zenith integrated stereo with an upscale changer with a magnetic cartridge for $35. Passed on both.

Two ironies: I have rarely seen/heard of the Craig name on TV sets, but today there was one in the paper, just like this one, for $35.

The other-I had to stop off a box of stuff to the Goodwill; not really my favorite place to donate stuff but it was by far the closest. I went over to the little alcove in the back where they take stuff and there, on the floor, having just been dropped off, were 2 TV sets: a 19" Sony from the 70s-I'm not a big fan of Trinitrons but this one was very clean and had a nice look to it; and beside it, a 13" Chromacolor II! Also very clean, probably from the same house. (somebody who had bought quality) So, I wait around for a couple minutes until somebody comes in and I ask about them, letting the guy know that I will gladly buy them even if they don't work. No dice. They simply have to go through the standard procedure, end of discussion. That means, if they work they will end up on the floor (overpriced, no doubt), if they have as much as a vertical roll, in the dumpster they go. Grrrrr! I have sent polite letters to the manager here before to no avail. I looked around front and they had one piece of electronics for sale in the store, a BPC 19" that looked like it could have come from a crackhouse.

Guess I'll try and stop in again sometime over the weekend, keeping my fingers crossed. Not that I need another set, but these are too nice to destroy.
Man, I really hope they don't toss those sets. From what you said, I'd kill for that Trinitron...:drool:

My Craig has a GoldStar tube in it, so I wonder who really made it? GoldStar, I'm guessing, though that's also a brand I rarely see on the sets themselves.