I have a chance to buy a 1968 Magnavox color TV almost exactly like the one pictured (pix swiped from gallery) but without remote control feature. It is complete but I don't know if it works. I wouldn't plug it in at the store anyway. It has a repair slip inside from 1975 for power supply filters so I know it has been in service at least until then. The question is this: Is this a good model to restore and use daily? I would like to resotre a tube color Tv and this has that 60s tube Tv look that is just so attractive. It uses PC boards and I never like the idea of tubes sitting on boards. We all know what that causes over time. Are picture tubes for this model readily available? What do you think? I would want this as a restoration project and daily watcher.

I say go for it! My grandmother had a 1968 remote Maganvox console in service until the early 90s, until it was taken down by a loss of audio beyond my repair skills at the time.

It might not be a Zenith, but at least it's not another CTC-38!

Of course, depends on price. I say plug it in... It's not like it's from the 1940s with all paper caps. When it smokes, or makes foul noises, use that as a bargaining chip to MAKE THEM PAY YOU for removing this death-trap waiting to kill an innocent child.

BTW, I think that style of console is cool as hell. But I suspect I am alone.

Your'e not alone, Carmine. I am nuts about this particular style of console. It has the doors on the front like the cover of a rolltop desk that completely cover the front. When closed, it looks like a piece of furniture. The thrift store is only asking thirty dollars for it so price is not a factor. Are parts like flybacks, yokes, etc. easy enough to come by should I need them? How was the reliability of these sets back in the day? I know it's not a Zenith but I believe Magnavox of the 1960s was somewhat of a premium brand.

I agree with Compucat on the style... I like it too. But I also have to throw a wet blanket on the idea of making it a daily TV, because that chassis is very troublesome in my opinion. Constant problems, even when they were reasonably new. Most of them were junked with bad flybacks. Dr. Dan has one that is one of his daily watchers, and like the rest of those Magnavox tube sets, it's ALWAYS having something wrong.

So to get it and fix it up as a collectors items is GREAT... But don't plan on using it all the time. If you want a vintage daily watcher, get a Zenith or an early 70s Sony.

Charles

I don't think I have saw a working tube color Magnavox, not even in the early 90s when I had a boatload of late 60s stuff. I knew several folks with a big, handsome Magnavox taking up space in a corner but not working. They are easy to spot, even the many versions with doors over the controls, due to that distinctive crt bezel they used just about forever.

I like that CRT bezel. That is such a distinctive feature. Are these sets really that problematic? Was it poor build quality (which is not outwardly apparent on the sample I'm considering) or circuit design/component selection? How was the picture on these when working properly? I bet they look great showing a DVD of "I Dream Of Jeannie" or "Bewitched".

Every Magnavox color set I've ever had had a bad flyback. Now I avoid them entirely. I do think they had some of the nicest cabinets, I had a Magnavox round color entertainment center in that style cabinet with the rolling doors that was a really good looker, I wound up junking it mostly due to the bad flyback. But I have had good experiences with Magnavox B&W sets.

I think this set would be worth a flyback if it needed one. It seems some RCAs tend to go through flybacks too and they are still well regarded among collectors. The rectangular RCA sets frequently have much plainer looking cabinets. How is the picture quality between flyback replacements?

The picture tube has a slight green halo like one often sees on Zeniths of this era. Can this be corrected?

I have one of those Magnavoxes with remote. Mine has a replacement "black matrix" CRT. Mine has a video problem at the moment. The color was good, but the picture wasn't very bright. I was running it and smelled smoke and now I have a blank raster. I wouldn't think the flyback issue would be any more of a problem than the RCA's of that era, altho RCA parts are more redily available. I don't think you can get rid of the green halo, but you won't notice it when the set is on anyway. If the picture tube is bad, U can use any 23" tube. The best one would be out of a 70's Chromacolor. I wouldn't worry about anything until you go to the shop and turn it on. If it were me and the flyback was bad tho, I'd pass. They are too hard to find, and you need an exact replacement on those. In my opinion the best sets of that era in order were 1)Zenith 2) RCA 3)Sylvania/GTE 4)Magnavox

As I remember, console color TVs of that era did not have exeptionally bright pictures, not like today's 27" sets. It's nice to know that the Maggie will take about any 23" tube. I still haven't decided if I should buy that set. Because it's a console, I'd rather be sure I want it before I let it take up so much space. I really would like a metal Zenith tabletop color but I never seem to find those around here.

That's going to have a either a T931 or T933 chassis since it has the tint buttons on the remote. The T940's had the (Automatic Color) and had volume up and down instead of tint. This set will have step volume. I didn't think these sets were anymore troublesome than others of the time, I owned a couple as personal sets when they were still in general service and never had a flyback failure on any I owned. I changed a lot of flybacks while I was in TV service and never thought these sets was any worse than RCA and a lot better than the Admirals, that said Zenith flybacks seemed to hold up really well. But I've got a round screen Zenith right now with a bad flyback and a NOS one sitting on top of it when I get around to changing it. If that set was close I'd go for it, don't know where I'd put it because my Wife hates French Provincial furniture.

The set I'm looking at is NOT a remote set. The photo is from the gallery. The set looks exactly like it only no remote. The volume is a pull-on volume knob. It does have an auto-color switch in the back and rotary color controls on the front panel. It sounds like it is a pretty good set. I may just buy it. Can you still get flybacks for these?

So these aren't just RCA clones in nicer cabinets? :scratch2:

So these aren't just RCA clones in nicer cabinets? :scratch2:


As far as I can tell the first true Magnavox built color chassis was the U45 chassis that came out around 1965, it's easy to identify because it's got the HV cage on the left and the power transformer on the right. The earliest color chassis listed in my service manuals appears to be similar to an RCA CTC-15 and the manual is an exact copy of the RCA manual, IIRC Magnavox called it the U36 chassis, but after '65 with the exception of a few Japanese portables I think they were all Magnavox designs.

Hey, if you have the room, go for it ! You'll possibly be saving another old veteran from the landfill...That oughta be worth something..a few stars in yr crown...

Compucat, how far are you away from Detroit? I have the Zenith 18" Metal cabinet tabletop color set you were talking about...
BTW, if you have the room, get the maggie! Moyers still stocks the flybacks for those(at least the last time I bought one) they claimed to have plenty at the time. May not have been the very best quality electronically, but the cabinets were awesome! I enjoy my 1969 astro-sonic combo, it has the double sliding doors and remote that even controls the reject function on the changer! I would never put it into hard every day service though, as the pc boards became very brittle on the high hour units that used to come into my shop. (that's when they were 9-10 years old then, think what they would look like now)

I have 4 of these Magnavoxes which work fine. 1 is an 18", 2 are 23" consoles, the 4th is a 23" console with radio and phono. They all appear to use very similar TV chassis. 2 of them have needed repairs to the 6BK4 circuit but have had no trouble with the flybacks themselves. Had to replace some bad tube sockets on the 18". The remote model I have is the deluxe model with automatic UHF tuning.

Chad, you say you had to replace some sockets on the 18", were the sockets shot from heat issues? How did the pc boards look as well? Just curious to see how they held up after 30+ years!

I haven't worked on one of those in years, but one thing I do remember is that if you are not VERY careful when you take tubes out, you'll take out the socket and a chunk of the pc board too. Especially around the horizontal and vertical outputs tubes. I dont remember any other sets being quite so bad about that.

OK, 2 things I remember....Lots of bad flybacks too.

If it were close to me I would get it. I liked the early Magnavox sets. I do not recall flybacks being much more of a problem than any other brand. When they were properly aligned and set up they had an excellent picture. I always liked the picture because of the nice red of the crt. Not the orange red of zenith, but close to true red.

Bill R

I have a chance to buy a 1968 Magnavox color TV almost exactly like the one pictured (pix swiped from gallery) but without remote control feature. It is complete but I don't know if it works. I wouldn't plug it in at the store anyway. It has a repair slip inside from 1975 for power supply filters so I know it has been in service at least until then. The question is this: Is this a good model to restore and use daily? I would like to resotre a tube color Tv and this has that 60s tube Tv look that is just so attractive. It uses PC boards and I never like the idea of tubes sitting on boards. We all know what that causes over time. Are picture tubes for this model readily available? What do you think? I would want this as a restoration project and daily watcher.

I ran into a bunch of these about 20 years ago.
Most of them were junk. And the main reason was…yep the PC
boards. The dammed things were always deteriorated causing
bad connections making it a PITA to do anything with them.
Even the boards that had no tubes on them would fall apart.
I seem to remember a board that went vertically off the main chassis.
It contained several power resistors. I remember them falling apart
if I were to put any pressure on the resistors. It wasn’t just the fact that
they used PC boards. Whatever material they was using to make them with was $hit.
If you want a vintage set I would stick to something like an RCA or Zenith.

I've had several of these sets and they all worked when i got them. I never had flyback troubles but had major tube socket problems and alot of intermittants with them. I ended up doing like Chad does and hardwire the socket connections and bypassing the original traces on the pc boards. After that i had no more problems. Like Geoff said...you have to be very careful replacing tubes as the material they made the pc boards out of was very brittle even on low hour sets. None of mine were very sensitive on antenna but worked well on cable. As with all older model sets these dont behave very well when using a VCR but play great with a dvd player. Sound quality is excellent like most older magnavox sets. These had a chromatone control on the back also where you could adjust the white balance from a sephia color like old photographs to a blueish screen which was nice when watching b/w programs if you got tired of the same ole picture and didnt have to mess with the main adjustments. Not as good quality compared to a Zenith but definately worth looking into if it shows some signs of life. If it was close i would concider it. My favorite one was like the combo that Captain has.
Tony

Compucat, how far are you away from Detroit? I have the Zenith 18" Metal cabinet tabletop color set you were talking about...

I live in Suffolk, VA. I really would love to restore and use one of those metal Zeniths. For me it's all about build quality and longevity and Zenith has always delivered. This would be a great replacement for the 12" B&W Zenith in my avatar which was my favorite until my 2 year old daughter accidentally knocked it over and destroyed it. :tears:

Are you offering that 18" Zenith for sale? I would be willing to pay to have it properly packed and shipped since pickup is out of the question. What is the cosmetic and operational condition? It does not have to work, just be restorable and free of dents, missing cabinet parts, etc..

The Zenith works great and looks the same! Shipping might be a bit of a problem as it is at least 70 pounds and would require a huge box to allow for enough padding for safe arrival.

The Zenith works great and looks the same! Shipping might be a bit of a problem as it is at least 70 pounds and would require a huge box to allow for enough padding for safe arrival.

Can you post or send me some pictures of it? I know it would not be cheap to ship but it might be worth it to me. Might it be possible to ship cabinet and chassis separately? Harry Poster did this for me once and everything arrived quite safely.

I haven't worked on one of those in years, but one thing I do remember is that if you are not VERY careful when you take tubes out, you'll take out the socket and a chunk of the pc board too. Especially around the horizontal and vertical outputs tubes. I dont remember any other sets being quite so bad about that.

OK, 2 things I remember....Lots of bad flybacks too.


I was able to look inside the back and I believe I saw the horizontal output and damper tubes mounted on the metal chassis The high voltage cage is on the left hand side if you are facing the front of the set. It was hard to make out any other details as there is almost forty years of dust inside the set.

I have the 1967 remote version of this that you pictured, bought from DRH. He told me he replaced the flyback, among other things (and did a lot of work on the remote receiver too). I power it up infrequently since I have heard the reputation of poor reliability, but it is a real work of art cabinet-wise.

Regarding picture brightness, I found that swapping out video output tubes until you find a "hot" one helps. The chassis has plenty of color drive, but the luminance seems to depend on the gain of the video output tube, with very little cathode resistance in the circuit. Only other thing I have done is the focus rectifier tube died and had to be replaced.

I have yet to see a Magnavox TV on the curbs or treelawns, either where I used to live (suburban Cleveland) or where I live now (just beyond the Cleveland suburbs by about 10 miles). Were there certain areas of the U. S. where Magnavox was really popular? Since the company was based in Fort Wayne, Indiana during most of its existence, I would think these sets would show up most frequently in Indiana. But why was Magnavox so (seemingly) unpopular in northeastern Ohio? I had a collection of old TVs years ago (late '60s-'70s) which included just about every major U. S. make except Magnavox. I remember seeing only two Maggies in the Cleveland area; one belonged to a cousin of mine, the other was owned by an elderly lady (now deceased) who lived very close to Cleveland. (Both sets have long since been junked.) But so help me, these were the only two Mags (made by the original Magnavox Company) I've seen in 40+ years of electronics experimenting. The grocery store three blocks from my apartment used to have a small (13" or so) "Magnavox" branded stereo portable TV they would use during football season, but I'm sure that one must have been made overseas. Wouldn't surprise me if the chassis was made by Funai or some other offshore electronics firm.

BTW, I agree with the comment made as to the fragility of the tube sockets in those Maggies which had PC boards. Magnavox was not the only make with this problem. I had a 1964 Sears Silvertone-branded roundie (the chassis was a CTC12 clone) in which the video-output tube socket broke out of the video PCB after I'd had the set just three years (I got the TV in 1970 from a neighbor in my hometown).

the wood alone is worth it....

The set I am looking at was serviced and probably sold by Prices. They were the local Magnavox dealer and authorized service center here up until the mid 1980s. They disappeared during the 80s at the same time most of the legitimate TV shops around here did. That's about the time when customers considered sets to be disposable. I think that one store probably accounts for all the 60s and 70s Magnavoxes in Hampton Roads, Virginia.

Regarding the delicate nature of PC boards in vintage tube TVs: Since this is such a problem, has anyone thought of or tried to get reproduction boards made? These would be boards with all the traces onto which we could transfer the components from our sets. Imagine giving these old board mounted tube sets another fifty years of chassis life without bridging or bypassing traces. :scratch2:

Magnavox was a factory direct to dealer operation, they didn't go through distributors like RCA and Zenith. In the distributor set up a TV shop or very small dealer could go to the distributor and buy one or two sets and take special orders also, the distributors were also the factory parts depot. Magnavox was sold in high end department stores such as Marshall Fields in Chicago, in smaller towns some music stores were Magnavox dealers and all parts were ordered directly from the factory. It took a larger investment for someone to become a Magnavox dealer and in the case of Magnavox HEC's Home Entertainment Centers they had to agree to handle only Magnavox products, this began to change in the late 70's. Also for many years Magnavox was a (Fair Traded) product which meant the factory set the prices that the dealers had to sell the product for in order to keep their franchises, until this was outlawed. Magnavox had fair market penetration where they had dealers. Many independent service shops didn't care much for the Magnavox sets because of the parts situation where they would usually have to get them from a local dealer somewhere and most of the time the dealer would hold them up for full retail on parts. The guy I worked for was notorious about this, I've often heard him say "Why should I tie up my money in parts so they can make more money".

I remember the Magnavox Home Entertainment Centers. Randy, I have family in Poplar Bluff, and I spent quite a bit of time there. When we would go into town no trip was complete without a stop by the Magnavox store. This was in the late 60's and 70's. I lived in Memphis and spent quite a bit of time at the Allen & Bean service center. When I bought my Star system in 1978 Bill got it for me through the service center. They were always good to supply parts and such. I had a minor problem with the set while it was under warrenty. When I went to the service center Rudell (the tech) gave me a stack of modules and said " use what you need and bring the rest back ". I didn't have to wait for a service call.
Times were good.

Bill R

I think the popularity of Magnavox depened a lot on the local dealer. I see a pretty good number of them around here, and remember at least two Magnavox dealers in my area, 12 & Harper & 11 and Ryan-ish (both gone now). The dealer at 12 & Harper was also a repair shop. They sold used sets, perhaps as a way to make up for only having $$$ new Maggies.

The only old sets I ever saw at estate sales in Sun City were Magnavoxs. I also noticed the the local Maganvox dealer had huges ads in any old Sun City calenders, phone books, etc. Business must have been good.

I remember a white cabinet tube set playing, with a good picture at a Estate Sale around 2003. Right off the bat, I was kinda concerned about that old set playing pointlessly at the sale. I would have bought it, but somebody beat me to it... I hope it was a TV collector, but shudder to think it might have been a future fish-tank :sigh: Not much interest in "old" in Phoenix.

Around here (Central VA) Magnavox's were sold at our local Grand Piano and furniture store which is now named Grand interiors as they dont sell piano's anymore or electronics. They carried the complete line until the early 80's when they changed out to RCA's, Zenith, Sony and Fisher branded sets. The reliabilty of the newer sets caused them to do away with selling any of them. I used to see plenty of them here but havent seen but one in the past 5 years. I've owned at least 11 of them including two theater units with phantom remotes. All of them were 60's models and color sets except for 2 b/w ones. One of them was the rare 19 inch consolette. Magnavox's had their issues but have seen alot of them still in use all the way up into the late 90's so obviously they werent the worst sets to have. I would buy another one if i could still find one in at least semi-working order.
Tony

Regarding the delicate nature of PC boards in vintage tube TVs: Since this is such a problem, has anyone thought of or tried to get reproduction boards made? These would be boards with all the traces onto which we could transfer the components from our sets. Imagine giving these old board mounted tube sets another fifty years of chassis life without bridging or bypassing traces. :scratch2:

This wouldn't be too hard to do at home. All you would need is a scan of the board after removing all the parts, or good digital picture of the board traces before removing the parts. You could then clean it up in an image editor and print it full size on special etch resist transfer paper.

I doubt a commercially made replacement would cost that much, depending on how many you had made.