I was into radios since I was 7 or so. First antique radio that I ever had was a white Motorola AA5 set that I bought for $1 at an auction. Had bad filter caps and the thing motorboated like crazy. My mom's best friend's husband was an old TV and radio guy, and my mom baked him a chocolate cake for him to fix it for me. I came home from school one day about a month after I got it, and it was sitting playing in the dining room in the corner on the floor. I gave her the world's biggest hug. It was October 1978. I still have the radio.
From there, I amassed about 20 sets in my small bedroom, of various types. My first vintage TV, though, was a gigantic console Motorola b/w on legs. It had to have about a 25" tube. Had a huge M on the big bullet shaped control dial. I would so love to find one of those, haven't seen one before or since. My guess is that it was late 50s. Bought it for $5 at the same auction a year later. Used it for years, but got tossed when something was popping really bad inside, and I was too fearful to work on the thing. What the heck, I was 9 or 10 when it finally died
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The next TV didn't come into my life until 1983. I remember riding my Free Spirit chopper from a friend's house a couple miles away (Christmas present in 1978), and got caught in a rainstorm. It was trash night, and I stopped under a tree until the rain subsided. I sat there, and my heart skipped a beat because I saw this salmon and white box under the tree. Honest to God I thought it was a prehistoric microwave, and was really excited because we didn't have one.
Looked at the front, and thought, holy crap, it's a television! I picked up the set, and rode home with it on my handlebars.
I opened the back, and there was one tube missing, a 7AU7 as I recall. I didn't have one, nor did I ever end up coming across one, until 1991. It sat on a shelf in the garage until then, covered carefully.
I was at a yard sale in '91, and there was a box of tubes, and the 7AU7 jumped out at me, and the memory came back. I bought the tubes, came home, put it in the set, turned it on, and what do you know, it worked!
The picture tube was somewhat dim, but I watched it for about a year or so, until it ended up getting packed away again in the garage until I moved into my house here in 1996.....actually 15 years ago today. I still have the set, and still have my old chopper bike that brought it home back in 1983.....