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About 83/84 or so, I guess, I was a snotty nosed pre-teen with a hand-me-down late 60s GE color set, a real dog. I liked to DX and the UHF tuner was shot on that lump; also had cataracts, typical poor picture. Anyway, I rode my bicycle into town & looked around the GE/Zenith dealer's showroom. The set that caught my eye was a 19" bw Zenith table model. I think what I liked about it was the "old fashioned" style, that same sort of design that was widely used on many Zenith TV's back to the 60s. I guess I must have seen one of the old ones and it stuck in my mind. I even remember a recurring dream where I went in my parent's room and they had a color Zenith from the late 60s in there. (the dream was pure fiction) That bw set was something like $179 but the owner told me he'd let me have if for something like $129. I begged my mother to buy it for me, and even told her about the dream. Later I realized that those sets were made in Taiwan and were not anything real special. Anyway, Mom & Dad got tired of hearing me whine. They saw a tv in a sales flier so one day Dad & I set out with my life's savings (about $70) to get a new tv. Turned out to be one of those cheap 12" sets, this one was supposed to be a Magnavox but the fellow at the store (Western Auto, believe it or not) said they were actually Midland. As it turned out the set was a good performer and I kept it for several years until I came across a used Portacolor at a good price.
While I'm rambling on...my grandfather, who could have bought a truckload of color consoles, had a bw GE table model up into the 80s. (I think he finally bought a color set about 82) Many of the sets I have came from an estate, a tv repairman who died in his 90s. They tell me that he never had a color set in his house. (the estate did include a few in need of repair)
I used to have an Admiral bw console, tube type, that worked fine. Looked like it might have been early 70s. Dropped it on my toe once & lost the nail. Finally gave that tv to an elderly lady who was tickled to have it-about 6 years ago now.
Lastly, I recall seeing, back a few years, a couple Zenith color consoles with unusually rounded screens. These looked to be late 70s, with the varactor tuner, but something about that screen just looked out of place.
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Bryan
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