A Sylvania Halolight Followed Me Home
 

I was minding my own business when I stumbled across a Sylvania halolight set this afternoon. It's a small console with a 17" screen, and is a model 73M-6 "Colonial". The guy I bought it from told me it has been sitting in storage since 1982, which is when the original owner passed away, and wasn't brought out of storage until last week. By looking at the inside and outside, it was obviously stored in a temperature controlled environment, because the chassis is dusty but otherwise almost immaculate. It will clean up and actually shine. The CRT is an RCA Silverama replacement 17BP4D with a date code of 6513. Emissions are reading in the "?" area right now, but I've got it "waking up" in the shop. Original finish, original grille cloth, all knobs present. I have the back for it, but it isn't shown in the pictures. Should be a easy restoration (when I finally have the time after I retire in a couple of years).

Bruce, great looking little console. So, how did you "stumble" across this one? Craigslist? Can't wait for you to retire so you can teach me how to work on these old sets.:yes:

Very cool! I love it when stuff follows me home. Unfortunately, money never does, but plenty of other things do.

Bring that one up mice and slow and it will probably end up fine. It hasn't seen current in a long time, so if it will play as it, it might take a while for some small issues to correct themselves. The longer it plays, the better it will get if the caps hold out.

Cool set! The lightening bolt on the speaker grille is a bit touch :yes:

There's a store in town that occasionally gets vintage TV sets, and one of the guys that works there calls me as soon as one comes in. I scored my Dumont combo set the same way.

hi_volt, do they have anything good in now? I'm going to be in Tucson this week(Monday to Friday) and always like to check out the places for some good finds.

It's a place called Tom's Antiques on Craycroft and Pima. Right now, the only other TV set they have is a late 40's Motorola portable, which looks to be in good condition, but isn't what I collect.

I went into his place many years ago, and from what I remember he had some high-end antiques and was rather expensive. Like I said, this was a number of years ago, so I might have not remembered correctly or he has changed. I'll have to check out the Motorola TV while I am there. Do you remember what he is asking for it?

I didn't think Sylvania offered a Halolight model, that early. That's a '51 or '52 model using the 5642 HV rectifiers.

I think he's asking just under $200. A bit pricey, but it looks to be in excellent condition. I'm generally willing to pay more for a local set since I don't need to try to ship it.

Progress report on the Halolight. I must be living right this week. I checked the tubes out and found a weak 5U4 rectifier and a weak horizontal output tube and happened to have what I needed in my stock of tubes, so I replaced them. Slowly brought the set up over the span of about an hour on my variac and got audio, raster, video and a working halolight :banana:

Needed to touch up the horizontal and vertical hold, and that was about it. The picture tube is a bit tired, so the picture isn't all that bright, but it is watchable. Put in a tape of the Ten Commandments and watched for about 15 minutes. Very cool, and a testament to how well built these sets were back in the day. This one sat for 32 years.

Looks nice, I am hoping I have the same luck with my Magnavox 353 console when I get to the TV section - the tuner/amp have been gone through and work well so I am hoping for the best.

Happy to see another Halolight saved. I was given a 27 inch model as a kid, but the neck was broken from the CRT. I stripped the chassis and used the parts in other projects, but still have the BIG power transformer that had 2 5U4's mounted on top.

Still looking for the 1954 21" non-halo console...