1967 DuMont color TV estate sale find

[Jeffhs]

I think I saw a Zenith color set, and several others, in one of the photos as well.

When you say the "DuMont" set "worked", was it just to the extent that it produced a raster and white noise on the CRT and in the speaker, respectively? I don't see how you can be sure the set actually worked, well or at all (from a reception standpoint), without a DTV converter box ahead of the tuner. I don't see one on that set, or on any other TV shown in the photos; I did, however, see a small white box with the modern block RCA logo connected to the VHF antenna terminals of the "DuMont" TV. I think this must have been a signal splitter for an antenna, although again I don't see how the set worked with just an antenna connected. There would have had to be a converter box somewhere, unless Chicago still has one or more NTSC analog TV stations.

I did not realize Emerson, and later National Union, had the rights to the DuMont name by the mid-1960s. When I saw the title of this thread, in fact, I almost did a double take, since the original DuMont has been out of business since (or shortly after) the TV network of the same name went off the air.

The only TV I ever remember the original DuMont company manufacturing was the 19" console with the continuous VHF tuner. I don't think the company made sets with turret VHF tuning; the large console may have been the only big seller DuMont had. I would imagine the 19" set sold very well in the New York City area, as DuMont operated a television station there (WABD-TV channel 5, now WNYW-TV Fox 5) in the 1950s.

The 19" console is very likely a collector's item today, as there may be very few of them left; most of these sets were likely scrapped by the '60s. I think only one other TV manufacturer besides DuMont (Capehart-Farnsworth) made a TV with a continuous VHF tuner. I owned one of these sets in the early '60s; it was given to me by relatives who had gotten a new (for the time) B&W set.