RCA Victor portable at GW for $10 in Salisbury,MD

[JCFitz]

Saw a late 60's all metal cabinet RCA Victor New Vista Color at the Goodwill in Salisbury Maryland tonite.Has concentric VHF-UHF tuning with lighted dials.Wodgrain top and gray metal back.The model no. sticker was missing and no way to identify the chassis without removing the back.A collector might recognize it.I didn't try it as it was in the back of the store where they have the electronics and the only outlets to try this stuff is at the front of the store.I was surprised it was put out in the 1st place.Hardly ever any tvs at that Goodwill and the ones I've seen are all modern.I go in there mainly to look for records and quickly browse the electronics.Most of the time browsing the electronics is a waste of time.I'm not really a collector and I didn't want to pay $10 for it.I got too many modern ones to get rid of and no one seems to want those much anymore.They'd rather have a huge Plasma or DLP or for small screen tvs a ChinaMart elcheapo special brand new rather than a used one.I can't even get people on here to save my 70s solid state tvs.Maybe I'm too far away from any of you guys that will take anything other than a tube set. I hope someone who appreciates old tvs gets the RCA Victor.Bryan are you looking at this?

[bgadow]

Darn, I was in Salisbury last Saturday & even thought about stopping in the Goodwill. But there has never been anything there the times I looked. Hmmm...maybe I'll go for a ride tomorrow...I called & they are open 'til 8 so plenty of time to get there.

[drh4683]

Definitly worth getting a set like that! Probably a ctc-19 or 27 from the description. Let us know how it works out!

[JCFitz]

It was just put out this week as I was there Sunday and it wasn't there yet.Hope you get it Bryan.Much better shape than that Motorola I gave you.Might even work.Was just too heavy to cart to the front of the store being I wasn't going to buy it.They really got a shortage of outlets in that Goodwill.

[bgadow]

Got it! Now, this is proof that I still have the "TV Bug" because right after my last post I looked at the clock & realized I could be there and back in time for supper. The set was easy to find; I toted it to the front & got some funny looks from the staff. "They put THAT on the floor?!" and "Look, it even has knobs!" One guy was explaining to a cashier that the set used vacuum tubes & she just laughed, having no idea what he was talking about.

At first I guessed it might be early, maybe 66-67, but in fact its kind of late for what it is,I think. It is a CTC-27 Mural TV. Most of the date codes are April 69 though the crt was made the first week of Dec. 69. The set sure looks outdated for something that was sold in 1970; it has the old logo on front but the new one inside. Pretty clean outside, just dusty inside but I can tell it has a lot of hours on it. There was an old brightener on the tube But I tested the crt & its not that bad so I tossed the brightener aside. It does work-it needed only minor adjustments. Not the best performer I've seen; the focus isn't anything to get excited about & the picture is just a little too washed out. On weaker stations I can crank up the agc and help it but then when I turn to the strongest station it overloads. The other issue is an intermittent horizontal jitter, with the picture pulling in. I swapped a number of tubes & did some other nosing but didn't get rid of it. One idea I had was a flaky cap in the horiz. efficiency coil circuit but that was too much trouble to clip them out right now. Has anyone run into this problem? The aforementioned Motorola that JC gave me has a similiar problem which did not show up at once but now it also does it from time to time. The Moto pulls in more severly but less frequently. I have these 2 sitting side by side and they are very close in size with the RCA being taller but the Moto making marginally better use of the space as it is 21".

I have to wonder what the price difference was between this and the series filament (CTC-53?) 18" models. It seems it would have taken a good salesman to upsell a customer. I have a number of those including one Mural so it begs the comparison.

I have taken some pics but cannot post them until Monday.

Thanks, again, JC!

[Chad Hauris]

The Mural models were more deluxe/heavy duty models for commercial establishments such as hotels, schools etc. In 1969 I don't think the CTC-53 (which does have a Mural TV model) was in production yet...the series filament 18" set of that time would have been a CTC-36, so this may have been the only Mural line 18" model available.

There was a CTC-50 Mural TV which has a CTC-27 or 31 like chassis (18" crt, transformer type power supply, high focus voltage tube) but I haven't come across an actual example of one yet.

[JCFitz]

Glad you got it Bryan.I'm curious to know what causes that Motorala to do that also.It was doing that in the 80s before it got stored away and robbed for tubes.I guessed a cap but never had time to fool with it and needed the tubes for other sets.I was never impressed with the picture on it anyway since the Zenith console 20Y1C38 chassis I had at the time blew the Motorola away.I miss that Zenith.I sold it for $100 to a regular person,not a tv collector so you know where it probably went the first time it gave trouble or they wanted a more modern tv.Sigh.
I had sold that Motorala to someone too and it came back with the jitter problem so I replaced it with another tv.If it hadn't had that problem it probably would have ended up in a landfill like my old Zenith probably is.

[bgadow]

Maybe I'll try fixing it on the Moto & if I'm successful I can try the same thing on the RCA. The Moto was fine at first but the last time I turned it on it started acting up. Neither set will get much use as long as I have them so it doesn't worry me too much.

[Eric H]

This sounds just like the 27 I found beside the road. Also a Mural with the rear controls blocked off like a Motel set.

[bgadow]

I finally put together some shots. Really not that bad; watched a 2 hour documentary the other night & it peformed well.

[hposter]

Bryan,

The TV's ok--but the Motorola Stereo table top viewer next to the television, is a great piece!

Harry

[bgadow]

I wondered if anybody would pick up on that! Bought that at an antique mall in Reading, PA about 5 years ago. Fun to show off to people that drop by. At $65, it cost me more than almost any of the tv sets I have!

[andy]

What is it?

[bgadow]

It is a sales display Motorola put out about 1954 +/-. You look in the "binoculars" & view lighted, 3D slides of various models of Motorola tv sets. I guess I have about half the slides it came with, maybe 8 or 10 of them. Shows the sets displaying pictures in an living room type setting.

[Chad Hauris]

It looks kind of like the old penny arcade film viewers like back from Edison's time, that had a short filmstrip or flip book in them.