1967 DuMont color TV estate sale find

[drh4683]

Here is one of those "other brand" TV's, one that you might only see on the front cover of a Photofact and wonder if any of them were ever sold.

It's a 1967 "DuMont". This TV is an early example of American brand name identity loss due to acquisitions of other companies. The consumer division of DuMont was purchased by Emerson in 1958, then in 1965, Emerson was purchased by the National Union Electric Corp, a diversified manufacturer (particularly, air conditioners) and of course along with the Emerson acquisition came DuMont.

So I found this set last weekend at a local estate sale which happened to be an apartment of all places. Fortunately, I was able to speak to some of the family members at the sale and the original owners lived in this building since 1967 and that's when it was last decorated. It was a unique situation because the building contained three units and the family occupied the entire building. As you can imagine, that's a lot of room for just a husband and wife. The 3rd floor unit was basically never used. That's where the TV was located. That being said, it's obvious why the TV survived with such low hours.

What was also interesting is that this set was still plugged in and the 300 ohm twin lead was still wired to the antenna terminals. I still see this every so often. I turned it on, and to my amazement, the set worked. Not only did it work, but it worked almost perfectly without needing to adjust the vertical. To see this out of DuMont, let alone any tube type set is impressive. The only evidence I see of it being serviced were the replacement of only two tubes out of the entire 25 within the set. The CRT is original.

I have attached many pictures of the chassis as it's one we don't always get to see. The cabinet is built quite well out of solid hardwoods, so the quality for this particular brand is good for what was considered the "junk of the industry" back in it's day...