Searchinfg for Childhood TV's/Favorite TV's from the past?

[captainmoody]

I thought this might be a good thread to help members find special sets from their childhood or from their past.
There is nothing I enjoy more than locating a certain model TV for someone that has been searching for months or years, (I spent 19 years searching for a specific model, before finding it at an estate sale in 1996!)
You can count on two hands the "keepers" that I have. When I say keeper I mean Mint, perfectly working museum quality televisions. For me, the enjoyment is being able to use them, and have them look as new. (I'm not into hoarding or collecting just to collect)
Thanks to members here on the forum, and countless estate sales, I have pretty much everything that I had been searching for.
So I thought it's time to give back, and try to find sets for anyone here that happens to be looking!
So get busy and start a list! When a request shows up, I will see if I have the item. If not, I will be on the lookout. Maybe others can do the same and offer up unrestored or unneeded items from their collections, or from sightings at antique stores, etc when the need arises as well.

[Carmine]

I've been looking for a nice combo unit with doors over the TV. I figure this would be nice in my living room so that I can have two vintage TV sets without it looking too much like a vintage appliance store, that is until I wanted to show my vintage TV friends.

Zeniths are my favorite, and top-of-the-line SC ones even more so. My girlfriend has even admired a similar set.

I would never want to pester someone for a set like that, just make sure they knew I wanted it if they ever parted with it. I know there are some you hate for doing that.

I'd trade, pay cash, maybe even haul some huge-ass Magnavox console up the stairs of an estate sale, among other items. I could try to throw a few bucks worth of modern-junk repair work your way. Recommend you for some vintage work to others. Try to sell some of your sets to Harry Poster. None of this really as a trade for the TV, just part of being a friend.

Of course, it is the end of January, record cold and I have bronchitis at the moment. Work takes up most of my day. I'd need to borrow a truck, since that kind of set doesn't just get tossed in the back of a car. But if the situation were so urgent (unknown to me) to get rid of it that it needed to be offered free on Craigslist for any fishtanker to ruin, I'd cash in some favors and get there the same day.

But if this means you'll have to call my cell phone twice in a week, don't trouble yourself. Craigslist postings are no doubt easier.

So let me know if you see anything that matches that earlier description, ok?

Thanks.

[captainmoody]

Huh? Alrighty then!

[radiotvnut]

I've come up with a few sets that I remember from my childhood that I'm always on the lookout for.

1. Truetone early '70's hybrid 12" portable color set in a black metal cabinet. Made by Midland. My Dad bought this TV for $75 from a lady to use in the camper and in his bedroom. It went bye-bye in around '87 or '88 when no shop would fix it because it had tubes.

2. Early '60's RCA B&W portable with knobs on top of the case. Looks very close to the "sweet 16" that's on Doug's website. This was the first B&W TV I ever fixed in the early '90's.

3. Any early '70's 19" Zenith color 4 tube hybrid.

4. A late run GE Portacolor.

5. '74 or '75 19" Zenith solid state space command set with the fold down chassis. This set had the motorized varactor tuner with the vertical row of channel numbers. This was the first color set I fixed (blown vert. out fuse).

Like Carmine said, I'd never pester anyone for their sets. My list is based on sets that might become available to me in the future. I'm always running ads in the paper and getting the word out to people. One of the joys of this hobby is not knowing from day to day what is going to come along.

[Adam]

I think a lot of the problem in finding old sets is that we all live too far apart from one another. Over the last two years I've junked 2 of those mid-70s ss space command Zeniths, I offered them for free up here but no one wanted to pick them up.

Of the first few sets I used to have back in the 80s, the only one for which I have thought about tracking another one down is the very first set I ever had that I got from my grandfather when I was 7 years old, which was a late 60s 16" Zenith b/w tabletop. I have several 60s b/w Zeniths, not that exact model, although the 1960 17" SC 300 I have is similar and nicer (It has a metal cabinet instead of plastic, and the other one didn't have the remote). I've picked up a few of my favorites in the last few years, that remote controlled CTC-10 "Winnewood" I picked up last year is easily one of my top 5 favorite sets of all time.

[radiotvnut]

Yes, location is the biggest factor. The only set on my list that would probably be economical to ship would be the portacolor and there's a good chance that it would even get busted to heck and back during shipment. I see several interesting sets on epay that go cheap; but, none of in MS.

[Sandy G]

I've ranted about this set before here, but... My dad got hoodwinked into buying a Sears color mini-console about 1964 or '65... It was AWFUL ! He wisely bought the service contract w/it, Sears lost BIG money on that one. It was some weird screen size, 17-18" or somesuch, not quite a roundie, but not really "square", either. It was a Japanese-made set, prolly Toshiba, but it was before the Japanese had figgered out Quality Control. We sold it after the Porta-Colors came out, got one of those, it was a trouper, on 18/7, don't think it skipped a beat, til we replaced it w/a largish Trinitron about '72 or '73. The only one of those Sears hermaphrodites I've ever seen, Sonny Clutter had a restored one for sale a year or 2 back. They must have about ALL been POS, I wouldn't think many have survived. I'd still like to have one, kinda the old "moth-to-a-flame" business, I guess...

[kx250rider]

If I ran across a Hitachi CWA-200; a 12" color solid state portable from '70, I'd get it. It was a basic model with a black plastic case and no remote. It was our first color TV, and I remember going to Fedco with my mother to pick it up. I was only 3, but that was an exciting day! She bought it, but it wouldn't fit in the trunk of our new '69 Dodge Dart. So we had to go home and get her old car; a '58 German Opel which had a much deeper trunk... Returned to Fedco and brought the set home. Then my Grandma read my mother the riot act for buying a new TV when we "already had a perfectly good TV"... A GE B&W console with a weak tube.

Charles

[captainmoody]

Ok, Radiotvnut I have a 1972 Zenith 19" 4-tube hybrid in working condition. Are you interested? It's free if you want it.
Adam, Sandy and Charles, I will keep a lookout for those models as well.

[andy]

Most of my family's TVs were nothing I would ever want to have again. The first one I can remember was a late 70's 15", or 17" Sony Trinitron that they had in England back before we moved to the US. My dad bought it after he heard how reliable Sonys were. Their previous (and first) color set was an English brand and was nothing but trouble. Apparently they sold it when the CRT was getting weak after only a few years. The Sony was a lemon and went through several tuners before the factory service center fixed some underlying problem. We gave it to my grandmother when we left England and she used it until she died. The last time I saw it there were some small areas with bad purity near the edges, but it was otherwise good.

Our first TV in the US was a 19" Sanyo with touch sensitive buttons which never gave us any trouble.

The TVs I have a sentimental attachment to are actually some of the old tube sets I took apart as a kid. The most memorable ones were RCA color portables. At the time they were just old junk and generally beyond my ability to repair. I did fix up a CTC-22 which I liked and saved for a while, but the CRT was weak and blurry. I ended up giving that one away, but I'm sure it's long gone now.

I can also remember a very modern looking 19" RCA tube set. It looked like an XL-100, but it was mostly tube. It had the same audio module as an XL-100. I was surprised at how good the picture was for a tube set, but it had an intermittent problem that I never solved. I scrapped that one because I didn't want it and there was no market for tube TVs at that time (early 90's).

I can also remember a few sets that I passed up on and regretted it. One was a 19" tube color set at a school yard sale. It was something like $0.50 and I was going to buy it, but my mom talked me out of it because it was so old (at the time I was making good money on XL-100s and Chromacolor IIs). I can't remember the brand, but I remember it looked like the cabinet was almost too small for the CRT. It might have been an RCA.

There was another 19" tube color portable at a church yard sale that I was going to take at the end when everything was free, but the guy talked me out of it because he said it had been out in the rain. He gave me a B/W Sears which he insisted was color. I felt kind of cheated when I got home and confirmed that it was just B/W.

[Celt]

My first set was an all tube RCA 15" B&W with a woodgrain plastic cabinet that came on a woodgrain and metal roll around cart. Rotary controls for VHF and UHF. Had a dandy picture too. Wish I had her back.

[bgadow]

The 2 most important sets in my childhood were 23v color GE sets, transformer chassis...our main tv was probably a 'KE' chassis; I had a table model for awhile when I was about 12 or so which was maybe a chassis or 2 older. Those were not great sets, but I'd still like to have one. I had a couple in the early 90s but haven't seen another in years. But, yes, distance is a problem. If one showed up in Michigan it might as well show up on the moon. I would love to have that Hoffman out west but it's just not practical and I sure can't afford the shipping.

I have plenty of sets looking for homes, but nobody is all that close to me.

[captainmoody]

Doug found a shipper that's reasonable, so if you really want a set from somewhere else in the country,(Ebay, Craigslist) why not? These oldies we enjoy are not going to be any easier to find in the future.

[wa2ise]

My father's mom had a TV just like this Admiral I got off ebay back in 2000. We inherited it when I was in first grade, in 1960, and became the kids' bedroom TV.
It started failing from time to time (probably the wax caps) and sometime in the mid 70's it got tossed.
The one off ebay got all the wax caps replaced. And works (assuming the movers didn't break it when it went into storage..)...

[jhalphen]

Hi Guys!

i'll pitch in,

Looking for a 10 or 11 inch B&W portable, Curtis-Mathes, all tube, heated like hell, circa 1963-1964. As compact as a B&W Portacolor.

Was my grandparents TV in Tiburon, country house in the SFO Bay Area.

Spent endless hours on the roof to adjust the antenna's direction to get the most channels without ghosts because of all the horrid hills in the area.
Would show Gramps the new channels acquired when he came home from work, was proud as hell.

Became a "I Love Lucy" fan (9AM weekdays) after successfully receiving KTVU Ch-2 (Stockton-Sacramento) without echoes. I was 10...

Have never seen a C-M small screen on E-Bay for the last 10 years...

I miss that set!

Best Regards

jhalphen