"antique" console TV - Yeah, right
 

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-...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.

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-Sea...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

---

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

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

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

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'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".

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/.