How much cheaper can they make tvs?

[JCFitz]

It's getting ridiculous.$29 DVD players and vcrs.Fixed a bigscreen for a guy and they had a new 27" Sylvania flat tube tv they bought as a spare for $91 brand new.And the kicker was I got a call from a friend who saw a 51" Magnavox High Definition tv for $699 in Walmart last night.
The days of anyone getting a tv repaired are numbered.And I'm a tv repairman. And these tvs aren't built to last.Trouble is it's getting harder to dispose of electronics too.I think we're gonna see a glut of illegally dumped tvs on the side of the road in a few years.You can't hardly give away used tvs,thrift shops are getting picky about what tvs they'll take and the difficulty of disposing of them is going to be a problem.

[compucat]

I can't believe it either. It seemed that prices for TV sets remained fairly constant until the '90s. During the 1970s, a 12 inch black and white cost the better part of a hundred dollars and that wasn't cheap in those days. I think those of us who value TV sets as more than mere appliances should find, fix and use all the vintage sets we want as someday parts for new sets may not even be offered rendering them almost unserviceable. The vintage sets may not have all the modern features but they still do what they were meant to do - receive and display television broadcasts. I value build quality and long term serviceability over bells and whistles any day. Long live the tube.

[Andyman]

Originally Posted by compucat

I value build quality and long term serviceability over bells and whistles any day.

Welcome to the minority, my friend

[Randy Bassham]

I'm afraid we're only seeing the very start of what's going to be a much bigger problem in the not too distant future. With the coming of HDTV and the shutting off of the analog VHF/UHF signals there's going to be a flood of "obsolete" sets headed for the trash. Put the blame where you want but it appears to me we're being told we can't use our old NTSC sets and on top of that we're going to have problems getting rid of them. There will be converters to use the old sets but most people that just think of their TV's as appliances won't want to mess with a converter just for their little TV that sits on the kitchen counter. I live out in a rural area and we already have a huge problem with people from the city coming out on our gravel roads and dumping all sorts of unwanted items from appliances to tires, and in a county that is lucky to have one Sheriff's deputy patroling in the evening they are just too busy handling domestic calls and etc. to do anything about the junk strewn all along the backroads. This county has a lot of national forest land and last week I drove through one and spotted about a hundred tires all neatly stacked about 50 ft from the road. What I wonder is if we can't get rid of them what does the county or forest service do with them when they clean up the mess. I fear this is only going to get worse. BTW I got out of TV repair when I saw the first 19" Color sets sell for under $300.00 in 1978. I'd seen what the cheap imports did to the office machine business ie. electronic calculator prices in the early to mid 70's that basically turned them into throwaway items. One of the very few calls I got right was figureing out it was going to happen to TV fairly soon and I needed to find another way to make a living because consumer electronics servicing was going away in the future. I got busy and got my FCC license and went into two way radio and large transmitter servicing, it's a little more difficult to just pitch a transmitter that costs $60,000+. A couple of years ago I went to an SBA auction of a TV shop, there was a couple of almost new Sencore pieces of test equipment for servicing VCR's, they were hi-dollar items in the thousand of dollars. It's hard to justify test equipment costing mega bucks to service an item that can be simply replaced for less than $50. Just my $0.02 worth....

[Adam]

When I lived in Berkeley a few years ago, they used to have a 'dump all you want day'. And I would go around the night before the stuff was collected picking up all the TVs. Of all those TVs which was usually around 10 or so about 2/3 of them would work. Most of them would be working 21-25" ss color sets 15-25 years old. Once I picked up a 71 Zenith color hybrid in working order, a few system III consoles (one person with a 25" system 3 console even gave me some free lamps and helped me carry it just to get rid of it - and it worked great). I couldn't beleive that people would just dump perfectly good TVs. Basically I think people put a value of about -2$ on most used TVs working or not, unless they are either look really old, or really new. Mabye this is because the new stuff is so cheap. The one positive thing that comes of this is that good quality late model tube sets and early solid state sets do go cheap.

I certainly think that the older stuff was just built better, and much easier to service, TV, cars, most things. I'm going to be watching my old TVs and driving my old cars my whole life, because I like them better, and I can just keep fixing them. If maintained and adjusted properly they will often perform better than their newer counterparts and certainly last longer.

Long live the tube.

[JCFitz]

btw I just got a tv given to me by a guy went to service his new HD Sony 34" .He took the tv out of the box and they left it in the test mode at the factory.Easy fix.Before I left he offered me the old tv he had put out on the porch.Said it had some slight color bleeding and it was time to upgrade.The tv he gave me was a 1993 Mitsubishi 31" with the remote.
I plugged it in after I got it in my house and I could hardly see what he was talking about.The color and contrast were cranked a little high and after adjustment the picture is fantastic. I need to find out why the one video input is stuck on S video.I'm guessing it has a switch in the S video plug that switches between composite and S video and it's dirty but the tuner input looks great.I also gotta open it up and bypass that pesky PIP module.Surprising this one is still not affecting the main video path as they usually do when the surface mount electrolytic caps leak and corode the board.But it will eventually.And I'll check the chassis over.Early 90's Mitsubishi tvs were known for leaking electrolytic caps but otherwise they're great quality sets.The picture tubes are far superior to early and mid 90's Sony tvs and especially Zenith tvs.It takes a lot of hours to use up the emission on a Mitsubishi tube and a bad flyback is rare.

[Celt]

I wish I had kept my mid-seventies RCA 15" B&W portable. It was a tube chassis in a walnut grain case that sat on a metal and woodgrain roll cart. Had good sensitivity and a dandy picture to boot. But back then I was a fool and fell for every new face that came around. It seemed I was always selling off good stuff for the latest and greatest new crap.

[bgadow]

Like the area Randy is from, we have lots of back roads which are already littered with old mattresses, couches, washing machines, tires, etc. I've seen a few tv sets in the ditches and expect to see more. Right now in most of the local counties you can still dump these legally for free at the landfill but most folks don't want to deal with the drive & limited hours. I had not seen any tv sets at the local collection site for a couple years but today I spotted something so pulled in for a closer look. They were closed until Wednesday so I don't know what I would have done if I had actually wanted what they had. Turned out to be 2 sets, one an older rear projection set & the other a solid state particle board box. This will get interesting in a few years-what will we-meaning us nuts on this forum-save from the ditches & alleyways, and what will we leave behind? There is going to be some good hardware out there for the taking.

[rcaman]

in the early eightys rca would give you a 12" b&w tv with the purchase of selected color consoles. you would not believe how many sales that generated for me. times sure have changed

[kx250rider]

Today ALONE, our shared dumpster (about 8 homes), had a 35" JVC, and a 25" Sharp in it! Both battered, but both would have been valuable used sets 10 years ago. Despite the new law in CA that makes it an arrestable offense to dump any TV, computer, or cellphone in the trash, I see them all the time. It has been "illegal" to dump this stuff here for a long time, but until this year it was only enforced on businesses (not private citizens).

You know what will be VERY VERY VERY rare, and maybe more collectable in 30 years than a CT-100 is now? I say the early 13" Funai VCR-TV combos. Millions and millions sold, everybody had one just about, and now they're just about all gone! Imagine when the UCLA Film, Television & Radio Archives is looking for a CTC-197 table model and can't find one?

Same goes for vintage cars. The newer cars with their computers and plastic bumpers are disappearing as soon as they get to be 10 years old. There are plenty of Model A Fords, '57 Chevys, and other 50 to 80 year-old cars all over the place still. But how many 1980 vintage cars do you see on the road? Think that one over..... I bet that 50 years from now, a '95 Pontiac sedan will be more of a head-turner at a car show than a Model A!!!!

Charles

[Chad Hauris]

I am a pretty good collector of TV's but I have passed on some of the CTC-177's etc. that I have seen junked. I am more reluctant to take on a set which may have difficult to fix problems and is just plain not fun to work on!

I do see a fair amount of cars from around 1980 (1977-1982) on the road...for the most part these are still the carbureted RWD V8 or straight six where you can change out even the whole engine easily and keep it going. Now for the mid-late 80's to the early 90's cars, these seem to be the ones that are more scarce.
I do agree though that the modern day TV's, cars, etc. are worthy of preservation too.

[truetone36]

Here in my area there is already a big problem with t.v.s being dumped. There are no repairmen in this area anymore, so they end up on the sides of rural roads. there is a road about 3 miles from my house with a deep ravine on one side and there must be at least 100 sets down on the bottom. There are 2 thrift stores here, though they don't take t.v.s anymore. There is a good side to the thrift store situation though, one of the stores does take older sets and then they call me, since they don't think anyone else would want them they let me have them for free! I just scored 3 nice Admiral sets this weekend from them, a 21" b/w console on a swivel stand from 1959, a mid-'60's color console, and a 12" portable from the mid-'60's, and the b/w console works fine now after replacing 1 tube.


Dumont-First with the finest in television.

[vintagecollect]

in CA the fee has changed from being charged when disposing to WHEN buying a tv set. I beleive, TV shops charge a fee or used to. This shows how disposable TVs now are. Most recyclers won't bother trying to sell or part sets, too many, no market. Not a old tv in sight rarely.

[andy]

As much as I love finding electronics at the side of the road, I have to agree with laws requiring electronics to be disposed of properly. If people want disposible electronics, then they have to be willing to pay for proper disposal.

One good thing about these laws is that vintage TVs are more likely to be saved and sold at yard sales, or donated rather than thrown away. I've found some great stuff at the side of the road, but I probably miss 99% of it.

[bgadow]

Originally Posted by Kaye-Halbert TV

You know what will be VERY VERY VERY rare, and maybe more collectable in 30 years than a CT-100 is now? I say the early 13" Funai VCR-TV combos. Millions and millions sold, everybody had one just about, and now they're just about all gone! Imagine when the UCLA Film, Television & Radio Archives is looking for a CTC-197 table model and can't find one?

Same goes for vintage cars. The newer cars with their computers and plastic bumpers are disappearing as soon as they get to be 10 years old. There are plenty of Model A Fords, '57 Chevys, and other 50 to 80 year-old cars all over the place still. But how many 1980 vintage cars do you see on the road? Think that one over..... I bet that 50 years from now, a '95 Pontiac sedan will be more of a head-turner at a car show than a Model A!!!!

Charles

I think the store in town still has a Zenith (Funai) combo with a faded price tag of about $300. I think it dates from '92.

Yes, there are some 80s cars that are getting pretty rare. I'm charged with trying to find parts for many of them. Some tough examples: an 86 Skyhawk hatchback, checked coast to coast with no parts available. I recently bought the very last NOS rear side marker for a 76 Ranchero. Yesterday a woman was in needing a tailight for her 89 Grand Marquis. Nothing new out there for these & used are getting scarce.

Future collector cars: 2 door Cutlass Cieras or Buick Centurys; Eagle Premiers; Lincoln Versailles; Chevy Beretta; Dodge Daytonas. Hey, I didn't say I would buy them!