General Opinion of Crosley TVs?
 

A local person told me they have a "50's Crosley TV in their basement, it's in a cabinet". That statement invokes quite a number of imaginary scenarios... Is it a nice basement, or a cellar? Anyway, they want $100.

They are going to dig it out and get a model number for me. But in the mean time, what's the general opinion of Crosley's 50's offerings? I'm still pretty new to the vintage TV game. I bought two zenith portholes. How does Crosley compare to Zenith?

Generally, the newer it is the worse the quality is going to be. I don't really know too much about Crosley, but their earlier TV sets were clones. They sold lots of 630 sets and I think there may have been some that were DuMont sourced, or something similiar. From what I've seen of their 50s stuff (the 21" rectangular era) it wasn't in the same category as Zenith.

By the time Crosley started selling TVs, they were already a company sold to Avco and on their road to ruin. Their early sets were rebadged RCAs and DuMonts, so they are perfectly decent sets. I have a 9-407 which is a DuMont RA-103 clone and a very good set.

I had a 1954 that I bought at a garage sale for $10. Plugged it in and it worked. Used it as a shop TV for two years, still working. No caps, no tubes, nothing. Yeah, I know but I didn't really care. Neighbor came over and said how cool it was. Sold it to him for $20. Moved shortly thereafter so I don't know how long it continued to work.