I just picked up a 1951 Philco 51-PT1208 table top model. It's complete, including the back and knobs and shows a little wear on the wood and plated parts of the knobs but is otherwise in pretty nice shape. It does have some stress cracks around the screws for the faceplate/bezel as well, but nothing broken.

From what I understand it uses the 12WP4 CRT. Is this set and CRT as oddball and seldom seen as searches would indicate? I come up with almost no info about it...and only a little more on it's bakelite twin, the PT1207.

Thanks
Jeff

Here are two pictures of the 51-PT1208:

That TV has a few idiosyncrasies besides the unusual CRT, known internally as the "peach" tube. It is series string except the tuner, damper and CRT run on a 6 volt filament transformer. The damper has a separate winding. Channel knob needs an allen wrench. The Philco schematic has some obvious errors in the power supply so don't try to make it work as drawn. I believe the SAMS is correct.

It uses 135 volts B+. Leaky sync coupling caps cause "bends".

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO REJUVENATE THE CRT. It will crack. Otherwise it is a good product and will make a decent restoration. The CRT is quite fragile so be careful. It can be converted to a 12LP4/12KP4, but it is tricky.

I like that set for its unique design and compact size.

It's an oddball all right, i have the 1207 version.

Be very careful with that tube, pretty much unobtainable short of finding a donor set and that's hard to do also.

The evacuation nipple on this tube is on the side of the tube bell, it sticks out an inch or so and would be very easy to knock off.
The other issues is the pins in the base, you don't want to pull one out.

I put a little WD-40 in the CRT socket while I was working on it so it would slide on and off with as little friction as possible.

Working on this chassis is rather easy but messing around that tube made me nervous.

Thanks for the insights into it. I did notice the evacuation tube sticking out and it does look like it would be easy to bust off. I've ordered an original SAMs for this set.

Thanks
Jeff

Thanks for the insights into it. I did notice the evacuation tube sticking out and it does look like it would be easy to bust off. I've ordered an original SAMs for this set.

Thanks
Jeff

If you want to get ahead start the Sams is posted on the EFT here:
http://www.earlytelevision.org/tv_schematic_diagrams.html

It's interesting that the Sams identifies 25L6G on the tube location chart. Those were made in both ST-12 and ST-14 versions; I wonder if one would even fit there.