My Prison TV
 

Let me make one thing perfectly clear, I did not get this while in Prison!
I found it at the Salvation army for $10.

I've wanted one of these curiosities but not at ebay prices and not all beat to heck like most of them that show up at SA.

Found this one when I was checking out and found they had a %50 off sale that day, not only was it cheap but it's virtually new, nearly perfect on the outside and spotless on the inside, the only flaw, if you can call it that, is the prisoners number that's been lightly engraved on it it two places, that just gives it some Street Cred! :yes:

It's got some tape residue left on it I need to remove, that's the red stuff on the outside.

I forgot who made those?

I have one myself that I got from a flea market, in a green color, branded Zenith.

I have a few of those. The Zenith sets come in green, blue and clear, built by Daewoo. I have a few Chinese RCA's, they're all clear. Two of the RCA's are fairly new, they have a built-in digital decoder board.

My grandfather was a prison guard at Sing Sing, and would occasionally have electric chair duty. He never talked about it, though. This back in the 50's. Don't know if the inmates had radios then, even.

I wonder if prisons have alumni associations. "I'm in the "class" of 78, did ten years for murder, released in 1978"... :D

Jail TV's in DeKalb County Georgia (Atlanta area) were by Sampo, when I worked at a large shop in the area in the early 1980's. They ate flybacks, and we bought them by the case directly from Sampo, who had a warehouse in the area.

They were shoved into a small clear box so the prisoners couldn't get to them. Sometimes, I thought they were being cooked in these boxes, and I was probably right, to a point.

I had a clear RCA from the late '90's. Also, I recall seeing a clear cased B&W KTV prison TV with digital tuning on ebay. I wanted that TV; but, unfortunately, the seller was dreaming big time as to what he thought it was worth.

I won one of the translucent blue Zenith's through one of McDonald's Monopoly instant winner promotions around 10 years ago. I think every McDonalds was supposed to be giving away one of those translucent-cased TV's. Last thing I needed was another 13" TV, but hey, it was free! :D It never seemed to give me quite as good a picture as my 13" Panasonics, so I kept it in storage for almost a decade until I sold it for $20 a couple months ago. Never knew Daewoo built it; I assumed it was a Goldstar/LG product.

Not long ago we visited the Eastern State Pen. in Philadelphia. When Kim first suggested it I thought, what kind of nutty idea has she come up with this time :) ? It was among the first "modern" prisons in the US and is kept up as a museum. It really was very, very interesting. I would suggest it to anybody who is passing through there. Apparently in the 50s they had TV sets high up on the wall in each corridor for the prisoners to watch, and there was a closed-circuit type of radio hookup for each cell, switchable among a few stations from what I could tell. (maybe like on an airplane?) There is special cell where Al Capone stayed and they have it outfitted with a radio. They didn't have the age right, though. He was there in the 20s but they have a mid-30s Philco on display.

Here is my post of my KTV 12" clear TV, with pictures:

http://www.videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=251282

Oh the inhumanity, making those poor prisoners watch B&W!
Where''s my Lawyer? :D

Cool set though!

I wonder what a brand new prison tv looks like. Do they make the LCD sets clear?

That's a neat set and I just commented on it over there.

The B&W is not so bad, but the lack of DC restoration, now that is cruel. :)

A while ago there were both a transparent green zenith and clear RCA at a local thrift, and while cool and cheap not something I have space for so I passed.