Question: Did Detrola ever build a TV?

[Carmine]

Just wondering since it's a (was a) local company.

I've got a small Detrola table radio from the 40s, and I just wondered if they survived long enough to build a TV?

[David Roper]

There's a Mr. Detrola at ARF who could answer this question definitively, but I have misty recall of the same question being posed before and ISTR a story about the company undergoing a change in ownership/management and floundering in the immediate postwar period, then going under before getting around to TV set production.

I recall no specifics, but again Mr. Detrola could tell you.

[kx250rider]

Yes but no.

Detrola's name is, like DuMont and many other old names, showing up on Chinese junk. I worked on a Detrola VCR-DVD unit that was made in China in the 2000s, and I've seen a 5" tube color set from the 90s branded Detrola.

But no, I don't think they ever built an original Detrola TV... No listings in any service indexes, and I've neither seen nor heard of any. I can't guarantee it though.

Charles

[David Roper]

Yes but no according to Mr. Detrola too:

Detrola never put any TV sets into production. They made several engineering prototypes after WW2, for evaluation in the homes of the engineers involved. A decision was made by corporate officials not to pursue the development of TV at that time, because they felt it impossible to compete with giants like RCA, Zenith, Philco etc.
Shortly later in August 1948, radio production was discontinued abruptly, and the production line equipment was sold to Motorola as well as Detrola's auto radio business. Everything else was liquidated to various surplus dealers. End of Detrola.

However, there ARE some Detrola branded TV's in existance. After the company went out of business, a local Detroit electronic surplus entrepeneur bought much of the remaining inventory of parts, and advertised as the official Detrola parts and service agency on the front signage of his store. A few years later, around 1952 IIRC, his son had an appliance and TV store in Detroit. They contracted with Majestic to supply 17" table model and console TV's which have the Detrola name hot stamped into the plastic control door. It's unclear whether they held the rights to use the Detrola name, but the sets were advertised in local papers and TV magazines. I have one sitting in the living room, which came from the estate of the original owner a few years ago, and an original print ad for it.

There are a few others known to exist. I believe that all of them were originally only sold in that one store since it wouldn't have made sense for them to try to distribute to other dealers being a family operation. No telling exactly how many of them were built, but one has to think the number was not very significant. So those "Detrola" TV's really aren't, other than having the name on them, and they were built several years after Detrola no longer existed. They are identical in every way to the Majestic models other than the name on the front of the set, and even bear the same model numbers as the Majestics did.

[Carmine]

I think "Mr. Detrola" interviewed my great aunt who worked at a Detrola factory... I set that up years ago.

I CANNOT BELIEVE that a brand as local/obscure as "Detrola" has been hi-jacked for Chinese DVD players!!! In California no less!

Why don't they just use names like "Happy Panda", or "Lucky Bamboo" and be done with it!