I'd almost bet the farm that the person selling this is between the ages of 18-23. If that's the case, this '87 Sylvania console probably is an antique to them.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ANTIQUE-CONSOLE-TELEVISION-/140504621004?pt=Vintage_Electronics_R2&hash=item20b6ba5fcc

I really got a laugh out of the $25.00 (reserve not met) asking price. Heck, they'd be lucky to EVEN GET $25 for this TV. More than likely, they'd probably have to ACTUALLY PAY a recycling center to take it. Here lately, there seems to be a lot of TV's on ebay with "pie in the sky" pricing.

When I first started picking up used TV's, back around '90, this would have easily been a $125 TV. By the mid '90's, $100. By the late '90's-early 2000's, $50-$75. From around 2004-2006, $25-$35. 2006-present, beg someone to take it.

Now, I don't even accept consoles like this. The newest consoles I have now are a 23" Zenith CCII from '79, a 25" '79 Sylvania Superset, a '78 Sylvania 22" B&W console, a '73ish 25" solid state Magnavox, and the rest are older tube sets.

BTW, I was in a local second hand side of the road junk store, where they had 3 overpriced TV's. One was a late '90's BPC 13" RCA for $35, a "last gasp" 5" Sylvania B&W for $25, and a late '80's-early '90's 5" Emerson B&W TV.radio/cassette portable for $35. It's funny that he wanted $25 for a TV that could have been bought new for $14.99 just a few months before the DTV transition.

I'd almost bet the farm that the person selling this is between the ages of 18-23. If that's the case, this '87 Sylvania console probably is an antique to them.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ANTIQUE-CONSOLE-TELEVISION-/140504621004?pt=Vintage_Electronics_R2&hash=item20b6ba5fcc


If that set were just three decades older (1957), it certainly would be an antique. Two decades older (1967) would peg it as vintage.

However, you are correct -- anyone in the age group you mention (or even younger) probably would think a TV made in the late 1980s was an antique. Nineteen eighty-seven was only 24 years ago, so the Sylvania TV under discussion here has a few more years to go before it reaches vintage age, let alone antique.

BTW, It's a shame that so many of these '80s TVs are winding up on curbs (in areas where TV recycling is not yet available), as many such sets still have lots of life left in them, or have at best minor problems. I've seen eBay listings for radios/TVs that had nothing more serious wrong with them than missing or defective/dangerous power cords or other small problems; the sellers, more often than not, list these as "parts only" sets, advising potential buyers not to plug them into line voltage under any circumstances, when all the set needs is a new cord or new tubes. Of course, as we VK folks know and respect, these older sets should not be powered up until they are recapped (at very least, the filters in the power supply should be changed). However, many if not most eBay sellers do not realize this, and fail to mention in the item listing that major work needs to be done on these sets before the new owner even thinks of plugging it in and turning it on. I'm sure more than one person (not associated with VK) has found this out the hard way. :no:

Here's another 'antique' set:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ANTIQUE-1960-Sears-Console-TV-/330522705001?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4cf4b03c69

Pretty advanced for 1960 I'd say! lol Actually, I like the looks of this set.... wonder if it's American made. I'd grab it if it were closer.

Here's another 'antique' set:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ANTIQUE-1960-Sears-Console-TV-/330522705001?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4cf4b03c69

Pretty advanced for 1960 I'd say! lol Actually, I like the looks of this set.... wonder if it's American made. I'd grab it if it were closer.

I think those sets with the touch tuners were late 70's maybe 1980.
I think they were Sanyo.

I never liked the color on them and the capacitance tuner would get flaky and start changing channels on it's own.

I've looked at some of these Ebay sets and often say, "Why is that listed as vintage or antique. They're 25 years old!" While I agree that the Sylvania above looks older than 1987, it DEFINITELY is not "antique" or even "vintage" for that matter.

By the way, I fall into this age category (18-23). I don't really even consider anything "vintage" newer than 1975. Unfortunately, many other people in my age group disagree.

I'm starting to notice the word "antique" used more and more on Craigslist to describe 80's items,wouldn't the term "junk" be more appropriate?

So does this mean a 1980 Honda is also a "collectors" car?:D

i see ads on craigslist and the bulletin board at krogers for "antique consul tv".turns out to be a zenith from the 90s.collectors item,vintage,hard to find,one of a kind and my all time favorite-timeless classic!where do they get this?saw a rca 32 inch with a swivel cabinet advertised as,"take a trip back in time".no thanks.that period of time wasnt good to me.dont want to revisit

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We just need to start calling our tube sets 'historic' and all will be good again

Now my whole day is ruined.... An ANTIQUE TV made AFTER I graduated from high school :( . I'm going to go get in my antique truck (registered and insured as such), which is the same year model as one I bought brand-new, and I'm going to go check out prices on rocking chairs and the cost of room & board at nursing homes.

Charles

i see ads on craigslist and the bulletin board at krogers for "antique consul tv".turns out to be a zenith from the 90s.collectors item,vintage,hard to find,one of a kind and my all time favorite-timeless classic!where do they get this?saw a rca 32 inch with a swivel cabinet advertised as,"take a trip back in time".no thanks.that period of time wasnt good to me.dont want to revisit

Good point about the illiterate descriptions,these sellers need to take a trip back to reality.

Now my whole day is ruined.... An ANTIQUE TV made AFTER I graduated from high school :( . I'm going to go get in my antique truck (registered and insured as such), which is the same year model as one I bought brand-new, and I'm going to go check out prices on rocking chairs and the cost of room & board at nursing homes.

Charles


LOL!
So if something from the 80's or 90's is an antique,does that mean the 1950's is now "ancient history"?
I'll have to check out the local museum and see the rise and fall of the tailfin exhibit!
I hear they may have found some ancient scrolls documenting a "television show" called "the honeymooners"....apparently it starred two cavemen named Ralph and Ed.:D

Here's another 'antique' set:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ANTIQUE-1960-Sears-Console-TV-/330522705001?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4cf4b03c69

Pretty advanced for 1960 I'd say! lol Actually, I like the looks of this set.... wonder if it's American made. I'd grab it if it were closer.

That is a Sanyo built Sears from the early '80's. Uses a SS chassis and inline gun CRT. The picture was OK when working right; but, the bigger names still had it beat. This set was probably built at the old Warwick Electronics plant in Arkansas.

Several years ago, someone gave me a slightly newer Sanyo/Sears console that had lightning damage. After repairing the power supply, it actually had a good picture. I ended up giving it to my neighbor for him to give to a needy family member.

i see ads on craigslist and the bulletin board at krogers for "antique consul tv".turns out to be a zenith from the 90s.collectors item,vintage,hard to find,one of a kind and my all time favorite-timeless classic!where do they get this?saw a rca 32 inch with a swivel cabinet advertised as,"take a trip back in time".no thanks.that period of time wasnt good to me.dont want to revisit

I've been having these problems for 20+ years. It all started with radios and I'd usually get a call from an older person claiming to have an antique radio. I assumed since they were old, they knew the difference between a tube radio and an '80's clock radio or boombox. Too many times, I have gone 30 miles out of my way, only to arrive to find some POS from the '80's. It didn't take long for me to learn to ask questions before making the trip. If there was any doubt, I stayed at the house.

More recently, I placed a "wanted" ad in the local paper for "old TV's from the '40's through the early '70's with knob style tuners". The only TV remotely of interest that came out of that ad was a late '70's beat up Zenith 19" B&W. Everybody else wanted to sell me their BPC junk from the last 10-15 years. And, many of these people sounded old enough to know the difference between a knob tuned TV and something later. I finally wanted to scream at these folks, "What part of my ad do you not understand? When it says "knob tuned TV's no later than the early '70's, that means I don't want to buy your 10 year old wal-mart pushbutton junk".

Now my whole day is ruined.... An ANTIQUE TV made AFTER I graduated from high school :( . I'm going to go get in my antique truck (registered and insured as such), which is the same year model as one I bought brand-new, and I'm going to go check out prices on rocking chairs and the cost of room & board at nursing homes.

Charles
Should be registered as a historic vehicle not antique. I believe anything over 30 years old qualifies.
Let the kids call anything with a crt as antique and we can call sets with signal tubes historic.

After all you can still find new crt sets at walmart/.

Should be registered as a historic vehicle not antique. I believe anything over 30 years old qualifies.
Let the kids call anything with a crt as antique and we can call sets with signal tubes historic.

After all you can still find new crt sets at walmart/.

Unfortunately anything 25 years+ is "antique", and anything 5 years to 24 years is "special interest/collector car", if low production or other criteria. It's better for insurance costs, at least. (I have State Farm on some, and JC Taylor on others). The CA DMV does have HV plates, but those are very restrictive.

Charles

It is very annoying. I browse through the ads on CL and many people are listing newer crap as "antique" or "vintage". Makes it hard to actually find the real vintage sets.

What's really funny are those folks who try to sell "reproduction" radios as antique. Oh, I didn't know that radios had built in cassette players in 1932.

I have an "antique" HDTV tuner, an RCA DTC-100. It is from the twentieth century!

The perception of what is "vintage" and "antique" is often misconstrued by our current throw-away, materialistic society that tells us that "new is good" and "old is bad." Free cell phone upgrades every two years doesn't help the situation either.

I once saw a set on Craigslist that said "Really Old TV for sale." I thought okay, it must be a late-1960's/early-1970's console. NO! It was some unattractive 1990's set. It's times like these that help me realize why so many TV and electronics repair shops go out of business.

I've all but given up on CL or Freecycle for finding old TV sets. Typical: woman in her late 50s says she has 3 sets to get rid of, newest one is a Zenith from the 70s, so I drive over 30 minutes one day after work. Turns out the "new" set is a monster 32" console, lotsa fun loading it up myself. (they were free, I didn't have the heart to tell her no) The second set was just a 19" BPC. The third set, a heavy, all-metal cabinet model that was pretty old, well, it is out in the garage...we'll get it last...oops. After loading up the junk she remembered that the third set was put out on the curb last year...

I know some folks who have that same basic Sylvania, except theirs is a Philco. Something about seeing that brandname on a TV...even though I know it is the same as any other NAP set, I just kinda like it more.

Every once in awhile, though, you find something good while looking. Just enough to keep me checking.

I do think the day will come when we wished we had saved a few of these sets. Last winter I gave away an early 80s RCA that my uncle bought new. Lots of memories with that set. I thought of the shows I had watched on it (in particular a certain New Years Eve that was memorable) and how this was a genuine RCA product, before it all came apart. But I just can't save them all. 20 years from now I know I'll wish I had it back.

Pretty advanced for 1960 I'd say! lol Actually, I like the looks of this set.... wonder if it's American made. I'd grab it if it were closer.Yes stuff was VERY PRETTY back in the day (Not like this newer garbage now)

I understand you not wanting to pick it up.. Its a shame they arent closer! (I doubt its american made by the looks of it (Although i could be wrong))

Yes stuff was VERY PRETTY back in the day (Not like this newer garbage now)

I understand you not wanting to pick it up.. Its a shame they arent closer! (I doubt its american made by the looks of it (Although i could be wrong))

I think the CRT and cabinet are American made. The chassis was likely made in Japan, shipped to the USA, and the whole thing was probably put together at the old Warwick plant.