Spotted in the wildz Curtis Mathes color roundie

Neat set, too high of a price ($225), plus it says possibly missing parts. It has been at this antique store for at least a decade. Not kidding.

[Notimetolooz]

My folks had a Curtis-Mathes (or is it Mathis) of about this vintage. I seem to recall the cabinet was better built than the chassis. The chassis was just a copy of a RCA.

[Tom9589]

I remember the same about C-M cabinets. They had a lot of wood in them and the outer surfaces were typically wood veneer, not printed particleboard. Inside - nothing outstanding. In the 1940s, C-M manufactured cabinets and furniture so their nice cabinets should not be a surprise.

[Electronic M]

Could always ask to speak with the owner and make a reasonable offer....If it's been there 10 years I'd imagine they'd be very open to haggling.

[damen]

A local antique store had a XL-100 console in a back corner for years. A friend of mine that was visiting from out of town made the owner an offer. The owner declined his offer saying that movie companies buy these for props so he was sure he would eventuality get his 250 dollar price.

[nasadowsk]

It’s like those old guys with the rotting car in the woods. “Don’t lowball me! I’m know what I’ve got!”

[Tom9589]

I live in the Atlanta area and we are seeing more movies made here every day. The movie folks don't worry about money and that is what is driving the folks of vintage electronics to hold out for more money. Lots more money.

On the plus side, we frequently rent out our church as a site for filming. If the movie folks break or damage anything, they always fix it back better than it was before. They also tell you what to expect so you don't get bent out of shape when they bust through a big window.

[vortalexfan]

The style of the cabinet on that TV to me Screams 1970s (or late 1960s) as I used to have an old Magnavox Console Stereo (not a TV) that I got from my landlord several years ago that had that same style of cabinet and it was about late 1960s or early 1970s.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by Notimetolooz

My folks had a Curtis-Mathes (or is it Mathis) of about this vintage. I seem to recall the cabinet was better built than the chassis. The chassis was just a copy of a RCA.

You are correct as to the spelling; it is "Curtis Mathes." These were excellent TVs and combination systems; I knew a family years ago in my home town who had one. Theirs was, IIRC, a three-way console (TV, AM-FM-stereo FM tuner, and phonograph) and had, again IIRC, a round CRT.

The TV chassis in these combos may have been RCA clones, but were good sets nonetheless. RCA, after all, was a pioneer in electronic television, so they did not skimp or cut corners anywhere. My first color TV, in fact, was a Sears Silvertone table model, with an RCA CTC-12 (IIRC) chassis and a round CRT. The set lasted me about three years, then, when I tried to replace a tube, one of the video circuit boards cracked and ruined the set for good, to my utter disappointment.

I found another Sears (RCA) TV, this one with a 17- or 19" CRT (again IIRC), a few years later; this set, thankfully, lasted me much longer than the larger round Silvertone set did. I got rid of that 17" Silvertone when I bought my first new color TV, a Zenith 13" portable. I bought another Zenith 13" portable, this one with one-knob electronic tuning, a few years later. When digital TV came along, I put the Zenith TVs in storage (eventually getting rid of both when I moved in 1999) and bought a 19" Insignia HDTV, replacing it a few years later with my current TV, a 32" Insignia flat screen.

BTW, many if not most color TVs made in the 1950s to about the 1970s did incorporate RCA chassis; these sets, however, had many different brand names on the cabinets, not just RCA. These TVs were marketed under almost every major brand you could imagine, except Zenith; for some reason, Zenith either would not or could not use RCA chassis in any television bearing the Zenith brand name--maybe it was a copyright issue.

[damen]

Happy Birthday Jeffhs !

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

You are correct as to the spelling; it is "Curtis Mathes." These were excellent TVs and combination systems; I knew a family years ago in my home town who had one. Theirs was, IIRC, a three-way console (TV, AM-FM-stereo FM tuner, and phonograph) and had, again IIRC, a round CRT.

The TV chassis in these combos may have been RCA clones, but were good sets nonetheless. RCA, after all, was a pioneer in electronic television, so they did not skimp or cut corners anywhere. My first color TV, in fact, was a Sears Silvertone table model, with an RCA CTC-12 (IIRC) chassis and a round CRT. The set lasted me about three years, then, when I tried to replace a tube, one of the video circuit boards cracked and ruined the set for good, to my utter disappointment.

I found another Sears (RCA) TV, this one with a 17- or 19" CRT (again IIRC), a few years later; this set, thankfully, lasted me much longer than the larger round Silvertone set did. I got rid of that 17" Silvertone when I bought my first new color TV, a Zenith 13" portable. I bought another Zenith 13" portable, this one with one-knob electronic tuning, a few years later. When digital TV came along, I put the Zenith TVs in storage (eventually getting rid of both when I moved in 1999) and bought a 19" Insignia HDTV, replacing it a few years later with my current TV, a 32" Insignia flat screen.

BTW, many if not most color TVs made in the 1950s to about the 1970s did incorporate RCA chassis; these sets, however, had many different brand names on the cabinets, not just RCA. These TVs were marketed under almost every major brand you could imagine, except Zenith; for some reason, Zenith either would not or could not use RCA chassis in any television bearing the Zenith brand name--maybe it was a copyright issue.

Motorola never used an RCA chassis either! They had their own design. Many techs didn't think much of them!
All the other firms, even the private labelers bought genuine RCA built chassis, up to and including the CTC15. After RCA came out with the CTC16, they allowed the other firms to clone the CTC15.
Getting back to Curtis Mathes, I worked on a cheapie, 1968 roundie CM set. It was a clone of that lousy CTC20.

[nasadowsk]

Zenith seemed to wait out color TV (to let RCA take their lumps, first), tgen came in with a better chassis…

[John Adams]

Originally Posted by nasadowsk

Zenith seemed to wait out color TV (to let RCA take their lumps, first), tgen came in with a better chassis…

I agree. Seems like Zenith had their own chassis around 1955 and May have made some sets using RCA tubes for closed circuit tv. Seems like they displayed a set before FCC when the color system was being adopted.

[Electronic M]

Zenith waited on TV in general in the consumer space. They had prototypes pre-WWII (I got to see at least one in person once), but instead of jumping on the bandwagon in 46 or 47 like everyone else they waited till 1948 to sell TVs to consumers.

Zenith was a big player in medical closed circuit color TV before the FCC was even entertaining color proposals (and before field sequential was briefly the US broadcast standard), had a 20" rectangular color CRT prototype in 1954, and NTSC demonstration sets based on the 15G, but Zenith CHOSE not to sell color TV to consumers till the 1961 29JC20 chassis (I have one and it is great).

I wish I could get my hands on one of the 1954 color demonstration sets (43M20 chassis IIRC)... There's like 4-10 surviving examples. I would trade half my early color sets for one complete restorable example of that set.

[old_tv_nut]

As has been discussed in other threads, most manufacturers waited both for the color market to take off and for RCA to be forced to unbundle their patent portfolio.