Is this a 1940s home-made set?

[TV set]

"Gift to girls--Boys of the radio-television class at Bay Ridge High School [located at 4th Avenue and 67th Street] present a television set to girls of the school. The boys made the set under the direction of Peter T. Vitale, their instructor. The smiling students, left to right, are Robert McLaughlin of 277 Dahlgren Place, Edward Lundin of 402 75th St., Leonard Swenson of 433 78th St., Marilyn Knudsen of 455 64th St., Carolyn Vertucci of 387 Clinton St. and Zelda Simen of 271 61st St., president, treasurer and secretary, respectively, of the high school's General Organization."

Is that really a homebrew?

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by TV set

"Gift to girls--Boys of the radio-television class at Bay Ridge High School [located at 4th Avenue and 67th Street] present a television set to girls of the school. The boys made the set under the direction of Peter T. Vitale, their instructor. The smiling students, left to right, are Robert McLaughlin of 277 Dahlgren Place, Edward Lundin of 402 75th St., Leonard Swenson of 433 78th St., Marilyn Knudsen of 455 64th St., Carolyn Vertucci of 387 Clinton St. and Zelda Simen of 271 61st St., president, treasurer and secretary, respectively, of the high school's General Organization."

Is that really a homebrew?

It may well be, but it looks surprisingly like an RCA 630TS from the '40s. If this set is homebrew, the builder could have run into copyright and/or patent infringement issues due to its striking likeness to RCA's TVs of that era.

[Dave A]

Transvision kit.

[AiboPet]

I'd love to build a TV kit someday....old OR new even. It's a bit much for me to hope Heathkit's rebirth might mean a TV kit of any kind, especially a CRT analog

[dtvmcdonald]

Originally Posted by AiboPet

I'd love to build a TV kit someday....old OR new even. It's a bit much for me to hope Heathkit's rebirth might mean a TV kit of any kind, especially a CRT analog

"Ask and ye shall spend" ...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SUPER-RARE-C...item4610c526ef

an unbelievably low price

Doug McDonald

[AiboPet]

It's a bit too much "spend" right now....and an awful lot of kit for me as well, that will net a very large TV compared to anything I have.

I did see this the other day...and another one somewhere else that was a much older kit by some other outfit (and likely B/W). I wish I remember WHERE I saw that so I could post it.

[Jon A.]

If that's a joke, it totally went over my head. "He who laughs last... didn't get the joke". I have zero knowledge of what unbuilt TV kits are worth.

Besides, it's a bit too big for our resident pet.

Oops, I was too slow on the reply. Post above didn't appear to me until I submitted mine.

[Eric H]

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

It may well be, but it looks surprisingly like an RCA 630TS from the '40s.

Actually, not so much.
Apparently being a tech geek could impress the ladies back then.

[Kevin Kuehn]

Seems to me the guy in the center probably built the TV, the other two are just presenting it to the gals. Typical High School group effort.

Am I seeing things, or is there a headless body in that picture?

[Eric H]

Originally Posted by egrand

Am I seeing things, or is there a headless body in that picture?

It appears there might have been another guy behind the one twiddling the knob, you can see part of his coat but not his head.
It also appears that something was airbrushed out of the area behind the first guys head, this might have been done to make it more symmetrical or perhaps you couldn't see all of the missing man so they just erased him, except for part of his jacket.

The arrow points to part of a tweed looking jacket that doesn't belong to either of the guys in the picture.

[dtvmcdonald]

Originally Posted by KV-1926R

If that's a joke, it totally went over my head. "He who laughs last... didn't get the joke". I have zero knowledge of what unbuilt TV kits are worth.

The value of an unbuilt kit is what the highest bidder would pay.

I would pay that much if it were the 19 inch table model with
cabinet and the CRT were good. I built one
of those and used it for many many years, and stupidly
let it get thrown away. Without a good
CRT, no, as the CRT very quickly became very very rare, as
it was a common size but has a special small dot pitch. There
likely is a regular replacement that would work, but
would not satisfy the nostalgia factor.

[bandersen]

Originally Posted by AiboPet

...and another one somewhere else that was a much older kit by some other outfit (and likely B/W). I wish I remember WHERE I saw that so I could post it.

Perhaps this B&W kit using a 16TP4 ? http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-1950...-/231012357096

[AiboPet]

Yup!....THAT was the one!

I think I ran across it during my usual "Portable TV" and then "Vintage TV" ebay searches when bored.

[Jon A.]

Originally Posted by dtvmcdonald

The value of an unbuilt kit is what the highest bidder would pay.

I would pay that much if it were the 19 inch table model with
cabinet and the CRT were good. I built one
of those and used it for many many years, and stupidly
let it get thrown away. Without a good
CRT, no, as the CRT very quickly became very very rare, as
it was a common size but has a special small dot pitch. There
likely is a regular replacement that would work, but
would not satisfy the nostalgia factor.

Nostalgia is one reason I have the TVs I have, lots of that vintage were around when I was a kid. Fortunately they're recent enough that I got all but one of them free. Same sort of reason I have my pretty useless (at the moment) CATV converter box. Lots of them in use back in "my" day.

An RCA remote with color adjustments, from sometime in the 60s, recently went for $59 on eBay. It looked a bit dirty and scratched too.