Why is it?
 

Why are Magnavox tube TV sets not seen very often? Were they crappy sets that got junked early? Were not very many of them built? I realize that Magnavox was more into audio than TV, but it seems to be like a relatively small amount of them have survived. Would any of you knowledgeable folks care to comment?

Audiophools dig their audio systems, and chop up consoles for the amps especially the bigger unsellable TV-stereo consoles.

I've found one in the past 30 years, I got it a while back but I haven't brought it home yet.

Magnavox pushed large furniture sets strongly, making more profit per set, but perhaps reducing their market share. They also had a reputation for eating flyback transformers, which could be a reason why many were eventually trashed. Plus of course there is the simple statistic of brand preference, with RCA and later Zenith in combination with RCA having the vast majority of sales. During their heyday, Zenith and RCA each held about 25% of the (US) market.

Tom, I am trying to locate and buy one of "the bigger unsellable TV-stereo consoles." I hope they don't chop them up until I find one.....

I'd have to concur with old tv nut.... We had a few on our house call route. They made beautiful cabinets, which is why the lady of the house would keep pushing for repairs. They just weren't that reliable.... ate flybacks more than RCA.. always seemed to have ODD issues that were a bitch to repair.. weren't service friendl... and in the tube sets.. had a so so picture. Kind of like Motorola.

Maggies were a cabinet set. They had the nicest ones. When
shoppers came in the hubby wanted RCA or Zenith & wife
wanted Maggy. We were lucky not to have a Maggy dealer
near by. Maggies tended to have more problems & not quite
as servicable. So they got junked earlier. An RCA or Zenith
were easy to keep going & we had tons of parts for them.
Add to that market share, Maggy had much less than 10% IIRC.
Zeniths with its steel hand wired chassis could be nearly
immortal so they are seen most. RCA's kept going but heat
would take its toll.

73 Zeno:smoke:

Thank you all for the information.

Good luck. The audiophools can get more for the amp (and get it faster) than for a whole console so many have met that fate and more will as time marches on.

Save them while/if you can. I plan to get a roundy combo as soon as I find one that hits my criteria. One day I may collect them, but for now I can fit one and will make that my limit.

I forget the screen size but there was a monochrome Maggie stereo combo at the Volo Auto Museum's antique mall for the crazy price of ~$500 last year...At that price it may still be there.

There is bound to be one still existing somewhere. There are several Astro-Sonic models and also the smaller tube models. The ones I am interested in sold for almost Concert Grand money when they were new. It took me almost a year to find my Concert Grand, and I've been maybe four or five months looking for a Stereo Theater. One will turn up eventually. I am going to start with one, and try to quit after just one. Of course, I could always buy one of the smaller ones to tide me over until a bigger one came along.....

My family's first two TVs were Maggies. The first one, about 1951, had a vertical
linearity problem that never got fixed after several tries.

The second one from about 1953 for many years, had a really excellent picture.
To this day I still remember the focus and interlace: actual black between
the lines the focus was so good, and exceedingly stable interlace.

Also, super bandwidth ... the color dot crawl (remember, from mid 1954 all
local programming from the Ft. Worth station was color) was astounding,
I never saw as perfect dot crawl until I got my TRK12.

I also NEVER will forget the Easter egg under it, left for months, that the TV
repairman broke.

I was in the repair business, part time for around 25 years. Granted, I didn't do the volume of work, the full timers did, but I only remember replacing one flyback, in one set. They always had other PITA problems, especially the tuners.
One customer, that thought, they had a prestige make, I mentioned that the set used the same tuner as the Muntz. :D

I had a Magnavox color roundie stereo theatre that had a great picture. It had a Sylvania picture tube in it.

I just helped OS X pick this monster up. Picture tube's dead, but it's all there. MASSIVE horns in this thing too.