Found a 1974 Wards Airline portable color TV!

[drh4683]

I found this at an estate sale in the area. It's a 1974 Wards Airline 12" hybrid color portable. The set was sitting in the basement and had a "Free" sticker on it. I simply picked it up and carried it out of the house and got to bypass the huge checkout line as well! The people running the sale were shocked to see someone interested enough to take it away. In fact, the one guy helping run the sale said to me "You are probably taking it only because it was free". I told him no, I would have bought it if it had a reasonable price on it, but I won't argue with Free! The guy goes "THAT FIGURES!" Well, that was their loss.

After I got home, I took the back off to check it out. This is another lucky TV as the original owners didn't leave it plugged in, so the instant-on didn't destroy the CRT. It's nice and strong yet and the set still works well. As you can see, it's made in Taiwan. That's because this set was actually made for Wards by Admiral and was built by AOC, which of course was Admiral Overseas Corp (Admiral's Taiwan plant). Admiral was one of Montgomery Wards main electronic suppliers next to Warwick in the 60's and 70's. This one must be one of the very last tube hybrid sets they made. It also has the newer "WARDS AIRLINE" script on the front, but the CRT label and tubes still have the old styled cursive "Airline" script. I think 1973 was the transition year they switched to the new logo. Most date codes on components throughout the chassis are early to mid 1973, but the CRT appears to have a 1974 date code. So it's a real deal Admiral designed set, just made in their Taiwan plant. You can see some of the parts inside look domestic while others are clearly foreign. A true hybrid in more ways than one. Admiral was one of the first US electronic manufacturers to open a foreign plant, and did so in 1967 when they started their operations in Taiwan.


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