|
Wow, it's funny, but I was just now sifting through a box of old service docs, and came across a couple of Muntz items, including the service manual for one of those 10-tube (plus picture tube) "extreme dollar-engineered" sets, though this model/series is a bit different from the one in the picture that prewtv referenced (the knob configuration is different, for one). Oddly, despite it being an official 'factory' service manual, it is actually just a thinly disguised Sams Photofact reprint. (!)
Along with this was an envelope containing several Muntz production change notices and related service bulletins. The "production values" of these bulletins and such are pretty much as you might expect from Muntz, though-- they're good ol' purple-ink mimeographs ...with masters produced using a typewriter for text mixed with totally hand-drawn schematics and other diagrams. Oh, and from the rough appearance of most of these, I'd say Muntz apparently made sure they got as much use as possible out of each of those duplicating masters too! [Remember: Nothing says "manufacturing quality" like company correspondence that looks like something that got handed out by a 3rd grade elementary school teacher...]
Well, at least the Sams-sourced "service manual" was professionally printed.
By the way, when exactly did the Muntz name completely go away..? I grew up in the St. Louis area, and there was a local TV dealer who used to run these distinctively dopey commercials, featuring himself as "Your old Uncle Leonard here!" Anyway, he always (at least through the mid/late 1980's) referred to his shop as "Leonard's Muntz TV" (and I think the ending 'tag' sometimes still even had the Napoleon-looking Muntz logo) despite the fact that his ads in the 1980's never seemed to actually mention or show any Muntz-branded items. Perhaps "Uncle Leonard here" felt that the Muntz name was still an important part of his store's identity, and so just kept on using it despite the fact that the brand itself was defunct...
|