Thinking about a rare Zenith prob'ly nobody has/wants

[colortrakker]

One thrift near me has a 12" BW Performance set that must date from the early '70s. Right next to it is a Performance Plus 19" color set from about '85. Most of the GE sets I've seen from that period are Performance sets, but maybe not all. We had a basic '85-vintage GE 19" that wasn't one.

Andy: could be there were some colorblind 80somethings out there who bought those late '70s BW consoles, but why would the manufacturers bother with such a small market?

[bgadow]

That late model bw set with the clear plastic cabinet might be a prison model. I think the cabinet was designed that way to prevent hiding contraband. They wouldn't require remotes & the warden could brag in the budget hearings that, sure, the prisoners had tv sets, but they were black & white!

I've also seen some awful cheap looking Performance tv's. There was a series of 12" bw sets with the controls on the bottom that were usually tube but I think the last of them were solid state. They looked straight out of the 60s; they got the Performance label along with the rest of the bunch. I seem to think there was a line called Command Peformance; I think I have a brochure for one from the eighties. The General did crank out some higher end stuff, like those blue crt sets. (got a brochure for them, too-maybe one in the same)

I can picture a lot of "old timers" buying bw consoles even later on. I guess color consoles in the late 70s were still $500 for the cheapest models? A bw console might have been in the $250 range? If all you had ever had was bw I guess it didn't matter. I remember in 1979-1980 I was a snotty nosed kid but was invited to a dinner where there was a presentation about NASA. They handed out a book showing how the space program provided inovations for the general public. They showed a picture of a Zenith TV showroom & said that some device or another was being used in Zenith bw console tv sets, as I recall.

I would suppose all of the later bw consoles would have been from the old-line sellers like Admiral, Zenith, Sears, Truetone...I bet Wells-Gardner cranked them out pretty late. You could go through Sams & find some late ones. I doubt anything was offered by the Japanese makers.

[jstout66]

Yup... I am sure they were for the "old timers" I remember while working in my Uncles Zenith Shop, we actually had an older couple order a B&W console. My Uncle was surprised he could get one, as this was in 1981. Zenith gave 2 choices.. a light or dark colored cabinet and that was IT. This couple had an early 50's RCA that finally died, and this couple would not hear of having a color set. My Uncle even offered them a used solid state color set cheaper than that B&W console was. I think that B&W console was around $275.00 where the low end System 3's were in the $699 range. Zenith color consoles were not cheap and probably one of the higher priced sets on the market at that time. The Zenith distributer in the Omaha area (Truesdell) was shocked that we ordered one and thought it might be a joke. They had one in the warehouse tho. Don't know what year it was as I assume it sat in the box awhile.

[Whirled One]

Y'know, I hadn't considered the "prison model" possibility... interesting thought, but I'm more inclined to think it was a regular-market item and that the clear cabinet was just because that was the "cool thing" at the time; seemed like everything from radios to Nintendo games to office supplies to cola drinks to gasoline had to be offered in some sort of "clear" version. :-/
However, I can't imagine that this TV would have been much less expensive than a low-end 13" color set, so I have no idea who would have bought such a thing..! Certainly never saw one of these in a store...

Back to the late-70's B&W consoles though-- yeah, I'm sure these would have been geared towards the "old timer" crowd, but it's still pretty surprising that there would be any significant market for them. For comparison, here's what the pricing was like for the 1978 Admiral TV lineup according to that catalog.

Those two 22" B&W consoles (identical except for cabinet style) were $299.99 list and had a dealer net of $233.65 for quanity 1 - 5. The least-expensive color console was a 25" model selling for $609.95 list ($494.25 net). [The catalog does show one lone 23" color console which I assume would have been slightly cheaper, but for whatever reason is not on the dealer price schedule (perhaps it had already been discontinued before the price list was printed? It is labeled as a "revised" price schedule)

So, the B&W console had a list price of just about half that of the cheapest color console. That's a pretty big difference!

BUT! If money was of primary concern, it seems you would have done well to consider these other possibilites that would have also been available from your local Admiral dealer. For example, rather than spend $299 on a 22" B&W console, you could have instead bought their 'deluxe' 19" B&W portable/table TV for $169.95 list ($136.10 net). Granted, it doesn't have the "fancy" (but mostly hardboard with plastic trim) cabinet of the consoles, but it does have an optional matching pedestal base available (price not listed) which would have dressed it up a bit. Especially given that the dealer would have probably more likely to offer a discount on the 19" B&W (which he'd probably already have in stock) than the 22" console (which he'd probably have to special order), we'd be talking about the console costing roughly twice that of the portable, and for not a particularly huge difference in screen size either. Oh, and it appears that they probably have the same chassis too. So, you'd have to *really* *really* want that console cabinet!
Now, if you wanted a color TV without spending the $600+ on a console, Admiral offered 19" table models starting at $399.99 list ($314.55 net, which falls to $307.15 for qty 6+). Granted, that's still more than the price of the 22" B&W consoles, but it's not nearly as big a price jump as it is to go to a 25" color console.

Question is: has anyone ever seen a late-70's B&W set in recent times? As has already been suggested, those must be pretty rare nowadays. I've never seen one turn up at garage sales/estate sales/thrift stores/flea markets, or even left out on the curb for the garbage man. *Somebody* obviously had to have bought these things back then. What happened to them all? Did everyone who bought a B&W console in the late 70's become so embarrassed by their purchase that they carried it directly to the landfill under cover of darkness rather than try to sell or give it away..?

P.S. Colortrakker-- looks like you're an _Oh! Mikey_ fan, eh..?

[Whirled One]

Originally Posted by Whirled One

Question is: has anyone ever seen a late-70's B&W set in recent times?

Just noticed my own post-- yeah, I meant "late-70's B&W console set"; I know you can certainly find enough late-70's B&W portables...

Oh, and BTW, attached is a scan of the back side of the catalog page for that Admiral 22" B&W console model shown in an earlier post. All that sales-talk makes it sound pretty exciting, eh?

[dr.ido]

I would have bought that wierd clear cased B&W TV. I couldn't have left something that weird behind.

The most recent large (> 9") new B&W sets that I remember seeing here would have been in the early 90s. I was in Melbourne CBD and passed one of those dodgy shops that sold counterfit watches and perfume. They had 14" and 19" B&W sets in black plastic cases that looked like color sets at first glance. The 14" set had a click tuner and looked odd, but the 19" set had push button tuning and a LED display. In the true dodgy nature of this shop none of the sets were running and the signs advertising these "CHEAP" TVs did not mention they were B&W.

I also remember being surprised when I saw ads in a 1991/2 Asian source catalog for 21" remote control B&W sets.

More recently a couple of years back I repaired a 12" B&W surveilance monitor that had spaces on the PCB for a tuner module and channel up/down controls. The case was white plastic rather than the usual silver/grey, but the blanked off hole for the antenna socket and and mounting hole for a pair of rabbit ears were still there.

While it seems B&W sets hung around for longer than I would have thought I never saw any more recently than say the mid 80s in actual domestic use. Even then most of those were older sets for the 60/70s that had been passed on and were serving as garage or bedrooms sets.

I did see a quite a lot of cheap 12" B&W sets in factories as process control monitors. They must have been cheap enough that it was worth adding a video input rather than buy actual monitors.

[andy]

http://www.js.cei.gov.cn/JSfamous/0100047/exiongmc.htm

This site lists several B/W remote TVs. Someone should order a container load!

[kx250rider]

I have a really unusual 14" B&W Motorola (not Quasar)... It's about '75 with 3 or 4 tubes; rest is solid state. AND ITS REMOTE!!!!!!!!!!! A single button version of the mechanical one that was used with the late 70s Quasar color sets. It also has auto brightness, and auto-shutoff that turned the power off after a minute or so of signal loss (off-the-air). Mine is the only one like it WITH REMOTE I've ever seen. If anybody is curious to see it, I can haul it out and take a picture. It still kind of works, and I've never done anything to it since I took it in trade 25 years ago for another set. I had given it to my friend's 5-year-old sister back then when I first got it. Recently her husband told her to get rid of it, and I got it back Normally I would have told her to dump it, but I happened to think how unusual it was so I took it. Still has the papers too! (TV not for sale since it's history with me goes so far back)

Charles

[dr.ido]

Originally Posted by andy

http://www.js.cei.gov.cn/JSfamous/0100047/exiongmc.htm

This site lists several B/W remote TVs. Someone should order a container load!

So are these still being manufactured today? I assume they'd have to sell them for a lot less than a color set and when a 14" color set sells for AU$79 retail that can't be much. I wouldn't have thought that there'd be anywhere left where the difference in price would be great enough for people to choose B&W over color.

I'd probably buy ONE for the hell of it, but I've got no market for the other 199.

[Adam]

I've had a 71 Zenith B&W with remote, but nothing newer b/w with a remote. The newest B&W TV I've had overall was a 88 Admiral B&W portable. I've never had a 70s B&W console, I think I would actually like one, just because it is kind of unusual. Do they still make B&W at all, I think the newest one I've seen is that 88 Admiral.

[kx250rider]

They still make B&W CRT TVs in 5"; SUPER-cheapie. They turn up at grocery stores for $19.99, and in car dealerships to be free with a test-drive, etc. Here's one on eBay of this ilk:

http://cgi.ebay.com/acn3511-Action-5...QQcmdZViewItem

Charles

I've been absent from the forums for a week or so, so I just saw this post.

I forget who it was, but one of our younger members (MaxM? Retro Hacker?) posted pics here of the one he found a while ago

It might have been me (23).

This TV is nice though. It actually has full DC restoration. Mine is from 1982 I believe.

There is also a 19" version of this set I'd love to get my hands on.

The schematic for the tuner I believe Andy posted a while ago.

Also got a 1974 RCA B&W 16" set with remote. It is all tubes except the remote circuit.