Is this Set Tube or Solid State?

[Whirled One]

Originally Posted by Magnavox300

Was Olympic ever a good name in televisions?
This is the first I ever heard of them....

Frankly, Olympic was generally an el-cheapo brand. They started out in the 50's mostly making inexpensive TV-radio-phono combo sets; some of their advertising pushed price as the main draw-- i.e. you can have a combination console for the usual price of a TV by itself! Later on, they seemed to move away from combo units.

One semi-infamous Olympic model was a (I think) 17" B&W set which sold for the then-blistering price of only $99 list. Why? One reason was that it had only *one* IF amp stage! This might be the model Dieseljeep referred to in his post. I think even Mad-Man Muntz managed at least two IF stages in all of his TV sets. Consumer Reports did a "Once Over" on that Olympic set, and, IIRC, they indicated that the contrast control and AGC were really unnecessary in that TV, because it always needed the contrast control set at maximum!

Speaking of Consumer Reports, in their 1960 round up of "minor brand" TV consoles, they indicate that while Olympic's top-of-the-line chassis did have 3 IF stages, none of their sets had keyed AGC (which was not exactly a high-end feature in 1960). As such, even that set was overall rated below their lowest-rated "major brand" set that year, an Emerson. [...but at least it rated better than the Muntz tested...]

Sorry to sound so disappointing, but Olympic B&W sets really were pretty low-end in general. I think they used a "clone" chassis in their color line, though, so those probably were better. On a more positive note, I doubt there are very many "surviving" Olympic sets these days-- I'm sure sets like yours are rather thin on the ground! I've never seen an Olympic portable before, and it's always interesting to see minor-brand sets like that. While it might not be a great performer, simple sets like that can be easier to deal with from a repair standpoint.

Good luck and have fun!