How Did You Get Started Collecting?

[AUdubon5425]

I guess I've always been inclined to collect things. When I was a little kid, my Dad gave me all his old 45's, and then my grandmother's friends gave me their old records. That started my record collection. At times I've actively collected stamps, typewriters, old telephones and old cameras. I always liked old radios, never could find any when I was younger but had an uncle who owned a radio/stereo repair shop and learned some stuff from him. Got serious about fixing them a couple of years ago after he passed on, and am now (slowly) learning about televisions.

[AndrewM]

I've been interested in electronics from a young age. When I was about 7 years old I was given a "golf ball" shaped transistor radio as a present. Within a couple of days, it was in a dozen or more pieces and I was in a lot of trouble!
The next step from there was the roadside rubbish collections. I used to spend hours riding around the neighbourhood on my bicycle with a box on the back for carting my finds back home. Of course, complete TV's were impossible to transport but the odd chassis did get salvaged.
The neighbours and friends did give me some complete sets to play around with. I still have the PCB's from a 1970 HMV hybrid B&W TV that was fire damaged that I was given.
My fondness for Kriesler (an Australian brand) and Philips products can probably be traced back to the many happy hours I spent as a teenager with my best friend poking around inside his families old TV's. It was at this time that I first saw the complex beauty of the Philips K9 colour TV chassis.

I gave up the hobby for a few years due to work commitments and a family move which forced a reduction of my hoarded junk, though thankfully, I did keep the best of it.

In the last couple of years I have been engaging in this hobby with renewed enthusiasm. I am interested in old technology generally, but have decided to concentrate on collecting early colour sets (for Australia that means 1973-77) as they are generally cheap (or free) and unappreciated at the moment. This period also saw early semiconductor technology pushed to its limits and construction methods were interesting.

[N9ZQA]

I guess I have my dad and great-grandfather to thank for my interest. Dad's been into electronics in one form or another as long as I've known of - electrician in a steel mill, ham radio operator, TV repairman, and has always dabbled in computers. We always had old sets around the house that came from one place or another. If I had half of those sets now I'd have a pretty respectable collection. My first taste of TV repair was a late 60's Zenith rectangular console. Dad had gotten it from someone who snapped the neck off the CRT going through a doorway. He replaced the CRT and had been doing some other work on it when I decided I wanted to get in on the act too. Don't remember much except a bright flash and a heavy diaper, but I've been hooked ever since.

My great-grandfather was another tinkerer, with a basement electronics shop full of tubes and radio parts. Although he'd given up the hobby, I was always welcome to come over and mess with whatever I could get my hands on. We would occasionally play with AA5 clock radios and whatnot, sometimes creating more smoke than results.

The first old TV I ever came across was a metal-cased Admiral portable in a dumpster, around 1995 or so. Replaced the cord and it worked (quite well, actually). Still going today, at least the last time I fired it up. Needs to be recapped and gone through, though. I've picked up a few more since then, including a couple Admiral consoles, and my daily-driver Chromacolor II. Still on the lookout for a Zenith roundie - maybe some day.

-Jim

[ha1156w]

Funny how we all were fascinated by those little glowing glass vials as children. Myself included! Does anyone get "hooked" like that with transistorized equipment exclusively?

I have ALWAYS been the type to tear things apart, from the moment I could hold a screwdriver. As a toddler, my parents had to put pins in the sliding lid of their Magnavox console (Harwick cabinet, 1967) or else I'd stick my hand in there and start fiddling with everything as it played. I literally cut my teeth on the edge of that cabinet peering over the top to watch the records spin 'round. My dad still has that console, and I just recapped an identical spare R204-20 chassis for it to extend its life and bring back the absent treble of the original. He's about 6 hrs away so pulling the original chassis for a restoration wasn't an option for me. I had a fascination with that stereo that persists to this day in all things Magnavox (go figure). Well, at least "original" Magnavox in the mixed-case letters, pre-Philips takeover.

In 5th grade, my mother took me to a local museum where there was a guy exhibiting jukeboxes victrolas and antique radios. I remember he had a Seeburg C, and AMI "A", and a Seeburg trashcan. Collecting them had never occurred to me since my parents were very "minimalist" types who didn't believe in carrying "junk" through life. Oh boy there's another monster that got unleashed.....it started a 30 years (and counting) fascination with antique radios and jukeboxes!

My first "tube" radio was a gift from a family friend. We were visiting her dad's workshop and I saw the AM/FM Silvertone Catalog #20 (182.something chassis). She observed how I lit up looking at it and arranged to acquire it from her dad. Yep, I've still got it today! The school's maintenance man was a former TV tech, and I learned a ton from him. From there it has spread into 30+ radios, 9 jukeboxes, and 9 tube TVs. I have to wonder the whole collecting thing isn't some form of OCD. To some it's hoarding. To me, it's collecting.

[jayk]

i've been into hi-fi since ~'70 but was always happy just to have one working version of whatever format player i had.

since last fall, i've started amassing 2, 3, and more coming, copies of players i already have.
strange thing is, last fall is when i found and signed up for AK.
hmmm, think there's any correlation?

nah!