Circa '63 Sears 10" Japanese-made B&W TV

[radiotvnut]

This morning, I went to an estate sale and got this Sears 10" B&W TV and an early '50's Ampro tape recorder for $15 for the pair.

The TV is in a metal cabinet and aside from one of the antennas being broken and it needing a good cleaning, it's in above average condition. Thankfully, it's not loaded with cigarette paste and it does not appear to have ten million hours on it.

The set is VHF-only and was made by Toshiba for Sears.

I have not checked it over and I don't know when I'll get around to working on it, but at least it will be here when I have time to fool with it. Hopefully, the CRT has some life left in it.

I was very surprised to find this at the sale and I suspect that most of these were tossed years ago.

[zeno]

That must be among the earliest of the JA sets sent here.
Never seen one & many tens of thousands crossed the
shops threshold. I like it.
Looks very primitive. Me thinks it will make a great repair video.
And slip in a rant while you are at it, yours are the best !

73 Zeno
LFOD !

[maxhifi]

Wow, there's some obscure tubes in there! Looks like some Japanese domestic tubes mixed with some US types. I look forward to a video on this one too, fingers crossed the CRT is good!

[DavGoodlin]

If that is like some early Japanese tube stereo receivers, those wax bombs are worse than anything else. Hopefully the 1/2 watt carbon resistors are not too far off, the gray dog-bones are usually OK. I have seen tube numbers like those in a list but never for real.

[maxhifi]

Originally Posted by DavGoodlin

I have seen tube numbers like those in a list but never for real.

Those are Japanese domestic tube numbers. They're almost never in equipment which was exported to the USA, but there's some exceptions. This TV is really neat, don't see anything like this too often.

[Eric H]

This is my Toyo Telo-Master from 1957 or 58. It looks like it was styled after the General Electric 9" sets from the same time, the build quality is about 900% better however.

All original parts and will still tune a picture.

[radiotvnut]

Originally Posted by Eric H

This is my Toyo Telo-Master from 1957 or 58. It looks like it was styled after the General Electric 9" sets from the same time, the build quality is about 900% better however.

All original parts and will still tune a picture.

That's a nice looking set and if I saw that picture by itself, I'd swear it was a GE. As far as the build quality, GE had horrible build quality and Philco, from that era, wasn't much better.

[Tube TV]

That's a nice little Sears radiotvnut. I've been tracking down pictures of this exact model a few months back. One thing that I found was a picture of the Sams Photofact dated 5 -1965. I also have thought this tv as being made in 1963 or earlier and was suprised to see it was either made that late, or was only added to the photofacts late.
Yours would have to be before the UHF mandate in 1964 though.

[radiotvnut]

Originally Posted by Tube TV

That's a nice little Sears radiotvnut. I've been tracking down pictures of this exact model a few months back. One thing that I found was a picture of the Sams Photofact dated 5 -1965. I also have thought this tv as being made in 1963 or earlier and was suprised to see it was either made that late, or was only added to the photofacts late.
Yours would have to be before the UHF mandate in 1964 though.

The fact that it has VHF-only tuning would make it no newer than April, 1964 and since the model number starts with 4, that may mean this set was made for the 1964 model year (in many cases, the first digit of a Sears model number is the model year). On the inside, I found what might be 1963 date codes on some of the parts. As far as Sam's, I think it sometimes took them a year or two to publish service information for some models.

[maxhifi]

That Toyo is awesome Eric. Thanks for sharing it.

[Tube TV]

Originally Posted by radiotvnut

The fact that it has VHF-only tuning would make it no newer than April, 1964 and since the model number starts with 4, that may mean this set was made for the 1964 model year (in many cases, the first digit of a Sears model number is the model year). On the inside, I found what might be 1963 date codes on some of the parts. As far as Sam's, I think it sometimes took them a year or two to publish service information for some models.

Yeah that's around the year I figured it was. Sams must have got it in later.

I read somewhere that the sets equiped with UHF had the tuner mounted on the side, if I recall it was in or around the well where the other controls are, contrast, brightness, ect.

It sure has a lot of heavy power resistors in it, and some real early mylar capacitors. I would have expected to see more of those Toshiba oil filled caps like the later 60's japanese sets.



Love that little Toyo Eric. It's sure in nice condition.

[DavGoodlin]

A book about RCA's Corporate History suggested that American manufacturers missed an opportunity to sell their quality electronics overseas. Almost all the US manufacturers sold small (12"<)sets by the early 60s but cheated on build quality and in doing so, made them unreliable and difficult to service besides. The Japanese had good reason to copy and improve the smallest TV's, their demographics wanted a very small set, but a good one.

Toshiba built a decent tiny set for Sears and Roebuck, that was a sign of the future, prompting some US manufacturers to set up shop overseas for tiny plastic-cabinet products. I have seen some of the smallest Admiral, Zenith and Philco sets were later made in Taiwan under their US name. Magnavox, Motorola and RCA did it too for their smallest offerings, so I'm sure there were others.

That Toyo really is an incredible copy of the 9T001, how is it to work on - easier?

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by DavGoodlin

A book about RCA's Corporate History suggested that American manufacturers missed an opportunity to sell their quality electronics overseas. Almost all the US manufacturers sold small (12"<)sets by the early 60s but cheated on build quality and in doing so, made them unreliable and difficult to service besides. The Japanese had good reason to copy and improve the smallest TV's, their demographics wanted a very small set, but a good one.

Toshiba built a decent tiny set for Sears and Roebuck, that was a sign of the future, prompting some US manufacturers to set up shop overseas for tiny plastic-cabinet products. I have seen some of the smallest Admiral, Zenith and Philco sets were later made in Taiwan under their US name. Magnavox, Motorola and RCA did it too for their smallest offerings, so I'm sure there were others.

That Toyo really is an incredible copy of the 9T001, how is it to work on - easier?

We had a lot of export to and licensed assembly in/for the Europe and South American market.
Japan we were blocked by their MITI ministry....Zenith and others tried to sell in Japan but couldn't because of that. Japan had documented cases of economic dumping of TVs in the US that couldn't have been done if we sold our sets there (they couldn't have afforded to dumps sets below cost here without ripping off buyers in Japan) or if our government didn't let them do this in exchange for strategic defense cooperation.
Supposedly after RCA lost their radio patent licensing monopoly in the Zenith suit shortly after WWII, RCA advised Japanese makers including Japanese Victor Corp on how to take over the US market.

I like Japan, the electronics they exported here, and love anime, but I can't help but have disdain for the people here and abroad who allowed our domestic electronics industry to be stolen. I would have vastly preferred to be an electrical engineer on domestic made TVs than be stuck with the boring automation and frustrating programming jobs left in the US for electrical engineers.
That Japan and the US, in my life time, allowed those evil genocidal Chinese communists to take over the electronics industry from them is just rubbing contaminated salt in the wound...

[ARC Tech-109]

Regardless of the build date that is a really nice find