Mechanical scanning wheel on the Bay
 

No affiliation, but it's pretty cool!

http://cgi.ebay.com/1930s-Mechanical...item2eb3f1e869

That is cool. The advertisement shows the neon lamp perched up atop that bare rod out the top of the motor assembly. For $8.50 back then you could hook this up to a receiver of your own devising and check out experimental television. Of course, $8.50 would buy you 170 bottles of Coca-Cola, or get you about 30 meals at a diner, so you had to weigh your priorities.

I know what mine would have been...

I notice the reserve hasn't been met,what do these usually bring?

Homebrew sets like this seem to sell for about $1500-$2000 on a good day. These barebones homebrews seem to be the most common sets that come up for sale, while name brand (and better looking) manufactured sets sell for over $10,000 at times.

Amazing!

There's a Western mechanical TV on ETF classifieds for $7K. http://www.earlytelevision.org/classifieds_prewar.html

Actually, this isn't a home brew, it is a commercial set made by Pioneer. They have been bringing around $3,000 recently. Who knows why this one didn't make the reserve.

I like the Pioneer TV but this is my opinion on why the reserve was not met. The Jenkins mechanical TV which sold in Jan for approx $3400 on ebay was missing the neon tube. See attached photo of the Jenkins on eBay. The Pioneer Mechanical TV appeared more incomplete; basically only the motor and Scanning disk missing the neon tube and associated mounting mechanism, the lens and lens frame. I talked to the seller of the Pioneer and told him if he might obtain a higher price if he could get a photo of a complete Pioneer set from another owner. The brochure of the pioneer does not show the complete set so its unknown what actually is missing. -Richard

This fairly complete except missing scanning disk Insuline Corp. of America (ICA) Mechanical TV kit eBay Item # 320334112087 had a winning bid of $4,250 in Jan 2009. The magnifying lens is sitting to the right of the neon tube in the picture. The ETF site has a brochure for this ICA Mechanical TV at http://www.earlytelevision.org/ica_ad.html