[Jeffhs]

This TV may well have been a stripped-down version of one of Muntz's fancier portables or consoles, for use in strong-signal areas (suburbs of large cities or the heart of the city itself, etc).

I've never seen a set with so few tubes/parts either, except for a few small bare-bones portables of offshore manufacture--most of which, except Zenith, have only two video IF stages. I took one look at the pic of the underchassis view of yours and thought someone had cut out much of the circuitry.

Another poster to this thread mentioned one of these Muntz sets with a tube layout chart that had one tube X'd out (one of the IF stages, IIRC). The person seemed to think this may have been the stripped version, with the standard version for local to fringe areas having at least two video IFs. If the standard model were intended for fringe areas, however, I would think it would have had a cascode RF stage in the tuner, in addition to two or more IF stages.

BTW, the front panel of your set rang a bell when I saw it. I had neighbors in my hometown in the '60s-'70s who had a 21" Muntz console, with a front panel very much like the one on yours. These TVs must have been very popular in the '50s (when my neighbors actually purchased their set), with the small model you show being popular in homes with small living rooms located in local signal areas.