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Old 09-20-2007, 11:32 AM
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kx250rider kx250rider is offline
REAL TVs have TUBES!
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Los Angeles & Dallas
Posts: 3,239
Nostalgic dialog: buying & selling used TVs

I happened to be thinking about how the dialog has changed so much between buyers & sellers of used TVs, and the wording of newspaper ads for such...

I wasn't around in the 40s & 50s, and I didn't start fooling with TVs until the late 70s. At that time, I'd read the classified ads in the Santa Monica Evening Outlook for nonworking TV sets. A typical ad might be:

TV RCA console, recent pic tube, has UHF. Works good $75

OR:

COLOR TV Zenith 23" console, new style no legs, rect screen, needs $40 repair, $175 obo

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When I'd put a TV in a neighbor's garage sale that I had fixed up, I'd sit there patiently while people coughed out the usual questions:

"Is it color?, Is it SOLID STATE?, Does the UHF work?

Then later into the 80s "Is it stereo?, Is it CABLE-READY?, "It isn't one of those old TUBE SETS, right?"
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Now days, (when you even SEE a used TV in the paper,) it doesn't say anything besides "large screen TV, almost new, $35"... Nothing about UHF or what type of technology. "Almost new" usually means 1993.

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Anyway, maybe others of us who were around before that might have some memories to share?

Charles
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Collecting & restoring TVs in Los Angeles since age 10
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