Old RCA logo, all tube chassis, nuvistor in the tuner, and no UHF... Should be a real RCA, right? Wrong, it's marked made in japan on the back and all tubes including picture tube marked "sharp"

It performs OK but nothing special, some buzz in the sound with text or bright images and not wonderful picture tube or contrast. Someone changed the horizontal output tube at one time too, 1977 according to a repair sticker.

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Old RCA logo, all tube chassis, nuvistor in the tuner, and no UHF... Should be a real RCA, right? Wrong, it's marked made in japan on the back and all tubes including picture tube marked "sharp"

It performs OK but nothing special, some buzz in the sound with text or bright images and not wonderful picture tube or contrast. Someone changed the horizontal output tube at one time too, 1977 according to a repair sticker.

It's possible, that it's from Canada.
If you look at Sara's transistor radio website, you'll see RCA badged radios, that were never sold here.
The Canadian UHF ruling came along much later.

When Zenith lawyers were in the discovery phase of their US patent pooling lawsuits against RCA, they found evidence of RCA executives instructing the Japanese Govt, MITI and various manufactuers on how to set up "dumping" operations in the US. RCA was a very early adopter of badge-engineered products and choose to make money on Japanese patent royalties, rather than sales of goods in the US.

Zenith won the patent lawsuits in the US, but the damages from dumping were much worse. This set is from that early era.

Yes it is from Canada, and so am I... Still,
I have seen RCA TV sets made here which are well into the xl-100 era, this nu vista was a surprise. I can't believe the tubes don't even say RCA on them, I feel a little cheated on this one :)

Most makes were going to imported sets on the cheap stuff (radios, and smaller screen monochrome TVs) by the mid 60's...some were even farming out parts of their nicer sets to the Japanese. For instance I have a 1967 Admiral remote color console, and while it says made in the USA, and the cabinet and TV chassis are clearly US products...The remote and it's receiver chassis were made in Japan.

There are a few models of Japanese tube monochrome sets that in addition to being sold under their own name were rebadged under most names that rebadged Jap sets...

Makes sense to me, but to not even label the tubes RCA seems kind of
Cheap to me. The nuvistor in the tuner is a real RCA touch,
I didn't know Japanese TV sets used them too.

Still, I think I will clean it up a a bit, it's clearly been stored in a heated and clean place it's whole life... Just needs some going over

I can't believe the tubes don't even say RCA on them, I feel a little cheated on this one :)
Perhaps later the imported TV sets had "domestic" brand names on their imported tubes or other parts. You would still have been cheated, but you would "feel" less cheated. :)

Never saw one in the states. Didnt see rebadged RCA TV's
till the later years, mid 80's or later and only on small sets til
the end of the Thompson years. Its Sharp built for sure........

73 Zeno:smoke:

BTW I think ? I saw a Nuvistor in a Jap set but dont remember
whoos. Tuner got a KRK number on it ??

Inside

Tuner

Not an RCA tuner................

73 Zeno:smoke:

Perhaps later the imported TV sets had "domestic" brand names on their imported tubes or other parts. You would still have been cheated, but you would "feel" less cheated. :)

In my CTC51K all the original tubes were Japanese, but the 3A3, which was RCA sourced. It had the OEM code date.
There was a few tubes that were replaced, but I imagine the originals were Japanese as well. The tuner is Taiwan made RCA. It uses a 3HA5 RF amp.

Never saw one in the states. Didnt see rebadged RCA TV's
till the later years, mid 80's or later and only on small sets til
the end of the Thompson years. Its Sharp built for sure........

73 Zeno:smoke:

BTW I think ? I saw a Nuvistor in a Jap set but dont remember
whoos. Tuner got a KRK number on it ??

Hitachi made Nuvistors, probably under license from RCA.

I was watching the tv last night - am sure the picture tube is weak, it goes totally dark when brightness is down and loses focus when it's set too high. Contrast is also pretty unremarkable. Still, it does a good enough job of playing the evening news and keeping the hours off my ctc-38 (my REAL RCA)

Linearity is also kind of touchy and seems to vary a bit with line voltage - kind of like my similar era 19 inch admiral. The sound is also a little bad, it's got buzz leaking through from the video signal and it's also got a bit of distortion. I am thinking that this TV is not going to get a full re-build, it just doesn't seem worth it to me... I'd rather put effort into a real RCA, or even a GE

For what it's worth, Nuvistors were appearing the first and sometimes second stages of FM tuners in Sansui, Pioneer, and Kenwood in the early to mid sixties.

I've seen a number of Japanese and German built RCA radios but this is the oldest badge-engineered RCA TV I've seen. I do find the non-RCA tubes odd. Almost every other brand at least had them stamped with their name.

Here's a tube from it

To me, this set is more interesting as a 'real' Sharp than as a 'fake' RCA. Tube chassis Japanese sets are getting harder to find where I am..even black&whites.

The only way to find this kind of stuff where I live is to constantly look for it... I have my eyes open all the time and only rarely do good things come up. I like it as a sharp too, I have just been reading RCA tube manuals and books since I was a teenager, and have a sort of brand loyalty as a result of admiration for what was once a great company.