How Did You Get Started Collecting?

[67Zenith]

I'm kind of new here and I have to say it's like a breath of fresh air to be associated with many other vintage electronics collectors. As I read through these topics, I sometimes wonder: how did these other guys get started? What sparked your interest in saving and restoring? Why do you do it?

For me, it has been a lifelong interest. When our suburban development was being constructed in the mid and late 1960s I followed the Bell Telephone installers around, summer after summer. Some of the Bell guys thought it was funny that a kid around 9 or 10 years old wanted to see how the telephones went in to the houses and some of them taught me a thing or two about installation. Then I was fascinated when our 1960 Zenith console went on the fritz and Mr. DeLeo, the tv repairman, came to the house to repair it. He talked into the set as if it were something alive, referring to the set as "she". I thought wow this guy is really into this. As the years went on, one could not help notice how the so called "progress" of telephones and tv sets (my two favorites) dwindled in comparison to the greatness of the 1960s. About 1984 or 85 I began to collect. The sidewalk curbs in my NJ suburb were abundant with tv sets from the 1960s. I only took one, a 1967 Zenith color console. It has been with me since and is currently in dry storage. It will move with me when I move again next year. Also still have my family 1964 RCA Victor portable. Have a couple others but I should have collected many more back in the 80s and 90s. And Western Electric rotary telephones LOL man you could have as many as you wanted in the early 1990s and I took plenty - people just threw them in a box in the basement or the garage. I had so many, every color, desk set, wall set, Princess, Trimline. In 1985, when my parents retired, I also pulled out the 1963 olive green one and the red one my family had since 1963. I still have 10 of these phones and they all work fine. I added one 1972 olive green touch tone for daily use but the rest are rotary and the red one is in current use. My siblings can't fugure out why I am still attracted to these things from our childhood years (but they have come to know that this is the real me LOL). My friends think my place looks "vintage" because I also like great, solid furniture from the 1960s, so I guess my home looks like a trip down Danish Modern memory lane when one visits me. When I show them pics of my '68 Buick Electra 225 they can hardly believe that this huge car was once a normal part of daily driving in the USA and moreso that I have owned it since 1987 and I still drive it now and then. That's my story. Feel free to tell your story. It amazes me that many people much younger than me are truly interested in saving and restoring vintage electronics and cars and I'd like to hear from them.

[bgadow]

Great story! Myself:
As a young kid in the 70s I was always fascinated by our color console, a tube chassis GE. I liked to turn the sound down and put my ear up to the cabinet and just listen to it "hum". I liked to peer in the back and watch the tubes glow, feel the heat, smell the dust. A highlight was when the repairman came, usually Mr. Bruce Meredith. I got a sneak peak inside! I loved to DX, getting up early in the morning to twiddle the dial. (around this same time I discovered the joys of DX'ing AM radio with a little transistor set) In the early 80s I discovered old radios. My parents had good friends that had a c.1940 Philco in the living room for decoration. I always snuck behind it while nobody was looking, and thought it was very neat...the places listed on that dial, the way the chassis was mounted on a slant, those big ST tubes. My uncle, meanwhile, had a '38 Philco, one of those "no-stoop" sets with the big round dial. I was in love!

There was an old lean-to behind my father's shop and one winter the roof collapsed. While cleaning out the place he dug out a Zenith "Universal" portable from about '46. He gave it to me to play with. I plugged it in but it just hummed. It was crawling with ants so I sprayed it with the only thing handy, some Raid Wasp & Hornet killer. To this day, if I smell that stuff I get nostalgic! I never did get that Zenith working...but it really lit a fire in me. In time, I found an AA5 Emerson from the late 50s at a yard sale, 50 cents. It worked fine. The notion that old tube electronics actually worked was a big deal to me at the time! From there it just steamrollered. I heard Jack Carney playing bits of Jack Benny on the radio. I bought more sets. All of my allowance now went to my hobby. On a field trip to the library I did some research and learned I was not the only antique radio collector in the world! I joined some clubs, got some newsletters.

One day, when I was maybe 15, I was in a local antique store. I never knew that the upstairs was open to the public. One day the door was open so I ventured up there. I walk down the aisle and up front there is a perfect layout of a 50s living room, including an RCA 21" console from '54. They sold it to me for $25, and agreed to deliver it that same day. It arrived before my parents got home, so I was able to sneak it into the house! Had it for a week before they knew. The set worked well, too. The collection ballooned. My little room became packed, as did most of the other space around the house that I could get away with. Around the time I graduated high school I discovered the town dump-and the alleyways behind the local TV shops. I started dragging home tube color sets by the truckload. (still fairly easy to do around 90-91)

Most of what I had back then is gone, a victim of limited storage space and my own youth and stupidity. But today I have many times more than what I had then. I also have an old car, the 67 Impala that Dad started fixing up for me when I was 15, also in 1987. Lots of other old stuff around here, too! Hope I wasn't too long...

[jeyurkon]

You guys have great stories! Mine is more boring.

I bonded with our 1949 1-128 Sylvania as a kid. I got to help my dad repair it as I got older. I wanted it to last forever. He eventually got rid of it. But slowly. It was taken out of the console and built into a rec-room first.

When I finally found a 1-076 that can be restored into a 1-128 I was happy. But, I tend to anthropomorphize inanimate objects. The Sylvania seemed happy too. When I see a set old enough to have a personality and in danger of going to the dump I feel a need to rescue it. It deserves to live.

I've been doing the same thing for cats. But I usually find other homes for them.

John

[zenith2134]

I am very new to the scene since I am only 20 but . . .

Growing up we always had Zeniths (mid 70s to early 80s sets) and the first time I unearthed a b&w set I was hooked on TVs. It was a late sixties Sony portable set BTW.

From that point on I used to read up at the library and on the net, then found this site.

[radiotvnut]

I've always had an interest in electronics. Back in the '80's, we had a 14" Truetone portable color tube set that was juggled between the motorhome and my Parents bedroom. I got off on looking at the glowing tubes through the openings in the back. It was a real treat when it would mess up and Dad would carry it to an older TV man that worked out of a trailer in his backyard. By that time, he was about the only repairman left that would touch a tube set. There was also a late '40's RCA Victor radio/phonograph console here that my parents bought new. It didn't work and I wanted to wreck it so bad I could taste it. Fortunately, my Dad wouldn't let me and I still have the radio today. When my collecting really took off was in the summer of '89 when I received a '36 Silvertone table radio with a big airplane dial. About a month prior to receiving the radio, we were at a family reunion in GA. I mentioned to someone there that I really would like to find one of those old radios with tubes in it. He didn't say much and I forgot about it. One morning, UPS called to say they had a package for us. It turned out that the guy that I mentioned the radio to found one in his barn and sent it to me. I still have it and would never get rid of it. Shortly after that, people started giving me old radios and TVs like crazy. The first B&W TV that I fixed was an early '60's RCA 19" portable and the first color set was a 19" Zenith space command ChromaColor II. I have not come up for air since.

[andy]

000

[dr.ido]

I've been interested in electronics since I was a kid. It's really the only thing I've stuck with over the years. I've dabbled with various other things over time, but with everything else I eventually lost interest and gave them up.

Some of my earliest memories are of a 23" Pye Hybrid B&W set in our lounge room. Often peering through the vent holes in the at the tubes and other parts rather than watching what was on screen. That set was eventually replaced by a Philips color set and relegated to a back bedroom. Early one morning when everyone was alseep I took it apart to get a better look at what was inside, then put it back together again before anyone noticed. Later when that set died I took it apart again, though this time I had permission.

Once while hanging around in someone's backyard while my father visited someone I found the chassis from a tube B&W set sitting in an old pram in the long grass. The lady who owned the house said I could have it, but my father would only let me take part of it, so I took the tuner. I carried that tuner around like other kids would carry a stuffed animal or toy car for ages, taking it apart and reassembling it several times.

When I was 7 I discovered the annual road side rubbish collection. I couldn't move anything big on my own so I wheeled around an old pram with a few basic tools and stripped the chassis out of things right there on the side of the road and wheeled it all back home. I used to get into a lot of trouble when my parents got home to find every flat surface in the kitchen or lounge room covered in radios, TV parts and whatever else I had found.

As I got older the area I covered got larger and I got strong/determined enough to start dragging complete sets home. I met the local junk dealers this way, a couple are still doing it today. Occasionally one of them would pass me struggling to move a set and would drop it off at my house for me.

I used to plan my route to school to pass dumpsters and other places I knew there was stuff to be found. I got a few other kids interested in electronics by showing them the stuff that I found, but I don't think any of them stuck with it. Once I even convinced a girl that liked me to help carry a set home. If only I knew then how rare this was, but I was only 11 at the time and was far more interested in the TV than I was in her.

I've been doing this for a long time now and it still excites me when I see the first pictures on a set that I've fixed.

It's that time of year again and there are 8 sets in my car waiting to be unloaded (though only the Siemens 70s set will be worth posting later) and I'm already planning what else to pick up after that.

I past from hobbiest or collector into hoarder long ago, but I can't help myself. I've tried to give it up. Thin the herd and stop accumulating, but I'm always drawn back to it.

[Sandy G]

I just never got over the little boy "It's Majickal" aspect of it...Sound/pictures coming from a Box...How Kewl is THAT, after all ?!? Yes, yes, I KNOW how it works....But the wide-eyed wonderment is STILL there...

[sampson159]

i worked in a repair shop when i was a teenager.i replaced crt s and rebuilt tuners.light work with some deliveries.spent a couple of years there and learned some but not enough to make me a repairman thats for sure!after military and marriage,i settled in to a career as a mechanic.i was badly burned in an accident and while recovering,i was left with no income and at that time 3 children to feed.i started to do some repair work from my home to make a living.the good people in our neighborhood passed my name around and business took off!granted,i wasnt that good,but i sure learned lots and made a decent living.unfortunately those 3 magnavox combos in the living room took a toll on my marriage!never cared for the old stuff until i found a roundie at the salvation army.this was in the mid 80s.it was a ctc 12.like new conditon and the picture was so sharp!30.00.my wife had a fit.wasn t in the budget.so i had to pass.i went back to twisting wrenches.still never forgot that roundie.years passed and i became a sales rep in the basement business.a customer had a sylvania d16 combo in their home.early american and it was pristine.they commented on how much they loved it and wish it was working again.i looked at it and found the horizontal output tube loose in the socket.wiggled it around and some rtv,presto!good as new.very good picture and that repair got me a nice sale that day.the fuse was lit and i remembered how much i really enjoyed this.on that job i found many 80s rca and sylvania sets but nothing really too interesting.still wanted to find a roundie.i stumbled on charlie trahans site by accident.his ctc 15 restoration struck a nerve in me.i wanted to do the same thing.made some contacts through the years and began searching.found this site through charlie too.posted a few times and began corresponding with the absolute best techs and best people on the planet.found my ctc15 with the help of bryan gadow.took time from his day to call me and give me some leads to chase down.i owe him big time for many things he has helped me with.started a small shop for a couple of years until the owner sold the building.i have a small collection of roundies(5) and some zenith radios among other things.i still haven t forgot that ctc12 .i wanted it so badly!some day i will have that same set.until that time i am enjoying the hunt.

[kx250rider]

I was always fascinated by electronics; since I was a toddler. I started fooling around with small 5-tube radios when I was 7 or 8, then someone gave me an old Magnavox TV when I was about 9. By 13, I had an after-school job at a local TV repair shop, and learned the trade. Shortly after that, I found a 12" round tube Hoffman at a garage sale, and wanted it BAD. I went home to get my mother to come help get it, but someone else was just finishing paying for it when we got back . I guess that started a "drive" to get a small round tube set, and then when I got one, I later got another , and another, and so on until my max of 300 sets at age 25. I made TV repair a career for 20 years, and now with no more TV repair, I'm an avocado farmer with TV restoration as a hobby once again. Down to <75 sets, appx. I've nearly repeated my collecting drive a few times, with Toyota cars & trucks with the rare Diesel engines, and now with Cold War era air raid sirens (yes, the 1/2 ton units that sit atop poles!!!!!). Fortunately, I'm too busy to have more than a few sirens, and the Toyota Diesels are down from 14 to 5. Sirens are at 4 and counting............ Marriage also puts a cap on collection hobbies, and happily so, as I've know for the past few years! And somehow; I don't know how, I went in my motorcycle shed last week, and realized I have 8 dirt bikes and 2 street bikes. How'd that happen???

Charles

[Trance88]

Only within the couple years or so have I liked old TV's. I have yet to make any decent scores. I've just got a couple 13" or less TV's that really aren't too fantastic. A little 10" '82 Quazar with an off center screen, A 13" '84 Sony that tends to have a fuzzy picture even on direct input through the RF, and a 12" '87 black and white Emerson that works just fine but eh. A TV I really want right now is a smaller rectangular tube console with the little "peg leg" feet. The best TV I have right now is a 2002 25" RCA bought new. I really like this old stuff but if something goes wrong with them I'm screwed since I know nothing about diagnosing and fixing TV's.

[67Zenith]

Wow thanks for the interesting replies!

My own ability of repairing sets is limited (I can fix just about anything mechanical on my '68 Buick and I have repaired and installed lots of old Western Electric telephones but I never learned enough about tv repair, especially the challenges of color tv).

Next year, when I turn 51, I plan to semi-retire, buy a small house in an "active adult" (that means 50 and over LOL) community in NJ near the shore (and the house I have my eye on will be for sale next year when the current owner moves to Florida. The next door neighbor is a 72 year old guy named Joe who used to own a tv repair shop in Jersey City, NJ and he said he'd get a kick out of teaching me a few things on one of my old sets that does not currently work).

Long live the hobby!

Side note: bgadow mentioned in his story here about hearing Jack Benny on the radio. I'm a big Jack Benny fan. I've collected his radio shows and tv programs for years. Good old Jack...always money hungry, always "39 years old", always scratching on the violin, the long, dead pan stares when he gave when he was amused by something, his car was a 1927 Maxwell (sound effects courtesy of Mel Blanc).

[zenith2134]

67Zenith, you are lucky to have that opportunity....the old timers know things that we can never learn from a book !

[radiotvnut]

As a kid, I learned a lot from those "old timers" that were willing to take time with me. Unfortunately, most of those "old timers" that I used to hang around have now passed away.

[zenith2134]

Same here. The few " old timers " (say, over age 70) that I made friends with in this hobby are now gone, as are their shops and resources.