Vintage televisions, anyone? Post pics here!

decojoe67 said:

Back to an earlier set, here's my latest find. It's a very early production 1948 Motorola VT-71. It was the first set to sell under $200 and weighs only 26 pounds! It's a transformer-less electrostatic set with a very simple chassis. Amazing for the time. The set came in mahogany, walnut, and the less-often-seen blonde, as this one is. The front upper and lower panel is a decal. The set was found with an exceptional condition case, but the chassis led a hard life. It needed major components replaced. After likely 55-60 years, the set lives again!

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Here's an ad for this one from the April 24 1948 edition of the Saturday Evening Post.

1955mercury said:

Here's an ad for this one from the April 24 1948 edition of the Saturday Evening Post.
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Thanks for that. It was the first TV to sell for under $200 at time when they were selling for close to $400. The amazing thing about this 28lb set is how simple the chassis is for the time. Less than a decade before the '39 RCA TRK-9 required a huge 200lb console cabinet to produce a slightly larger 9" picture!

This movie, Manhattan Merry Go Round, is the earliest movie to show a television set in operation, so far as I know. It was released in November 1937. Can anyone identify the set?

https://free-classic-movies.com/movies-03d/03d-1937-11-27-Manhattan-Merry-Go-Round/index.php

The show features Ted Lewis and his orchestra, Cab Calloway and his Cotton Club orchestra, Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, Kay Thompson and her ensemble, Louis Prima and his band, Gene Autry and his band, Joe DiMaggio as himself, and a cast of your favorite thirties characters.

Although DuMont and RCA were both experimenting with projection television units by 1937, nothing resembling that unit was on the market yet. I suspect it's most likely a purpose-built prop, designed to project a film loop onto a ground-glass rear-projection screen using an arrangement of lenses and prisms. The Mills Panoram, a coin-operated ""video jukebox" device that did exactly this using short musical films, came on the commercial market a couple years later and very much resembles the device found in the film.

The most common television set in the US in 1937 was a model built by RCA for field testing in the New York area in 1936.



It was not mass produced, or sold on the open market, but installed in the homes of NBC engineers and executives in and around greater New York to determine the quality of reception at varying distances from the transmitter. Only about 75 of these sets were built by RCA, but the plans were later shared with researchers in the Soviet Union, and were used to build quite a number of similar receivers, adapted for conditions in the USSR.

Of course, there were also the earlier mechanical-scanning television sets built in the early 1930s for the Jenkins television system, but transmissions had ceased by 1936, and these units had already been relegated to attics, or dismantled for conversion into simple radios. The image size on a mechanical set was very small, but as this technology was nearing the end of its very slight popularity, a few sets were made with lens-and-prism magnification systems that rear-projected the enlarged image onto a glass screen, much like the Panoram would later do.



If the set in the movie isn't a prop, or a Panoram prototype, it could be something like this, although the screen seen in the movie is much larger than the actual models sold, with the image being fed by a Panoram-like film loop. It doesn't appear to be a special-effects matte, which is what you usually see when images are shown on television screens in vintage films.

An update with my 1949 Pilot TV TV-37 3" television. I was a little disappointed to see the "Pilot Radio" free-form style decal on the rare optional screen magnifier just a mere ghost image. A collector-friend from VK was nice enough to make a reproduction decal and it came out perfect:

I also got a 1949 Emerson model 600 portable TV. It's got what was called an imitation "pig-skin" covering and has rubber feet on both the bottom and side so it be placed down like a small piece of luggage. It's got one of the nicest face-plates of all the early post-war 7" models and a unique almost cube-shape. This set was also sold as a wood tabletop:

A new addition to the collection - another classic compact 7" TV, a circa 1948 Raytheon Belmont model 7DX21. This example is an extraordinarily clean original inside and out. The chassis has been restored ad it works. This basically same set was sold under the Airline, Coronado, and Trutone name, as well as in kit form. It's a very appealing, clean radio-like styled cabinet.

A bit of history from Dumont Labs.
A rather large and heavy, vintage Dumont Television service binder I've had for many years, covering their models RA101 to RA165. Along with service bulletins, and parts listings.

I recently acquired this 1950 Philco model 50-701 7" black bakelite TV. These were the last of the very popular compact 7" TV's that started in late '47. These are quality sets in and out, although they were known to suffer picture fade after extended use. This has now been addressed by repairman. So far what you see is about 10 hours to make it look like new again. Next is having my friend repair the chassis. I can't wait to see it playing. These are very hard to find in any condition.

I seem to remember that the issue with those 7-inch Philcos is a basic circuit design flaw in which heat inside the cabinet would change the characteristics of the coil that provided the high voltage for the picture tube -- which caused the fade out -- and that this was a known issue even when the sets were new, which led to their discontinuation. Which may explain their modern rarity.

I know some people have resorted to installing pancake fans in the back of the cabinet to try and cool things down. Some people have also had better luck operating the sets with the back removed and the high-voltage cage off. Just keep your fingers out of the back if you try this!

Thank you and you are correct. From what I learned, this HV fade problem happened as the sets aged as there's no service notes in the early days addressing any fade problem. Most collectors used to say it was a flaw when the set was made. Not true. The materials used for the coil obviously broke down a bit. I had a wood version in mint condition years ago and, unfortunately traded it because of this issue. My long-time repairman has several options to remedy the situation this time with a simple muffin fan being the quickest and easiest. These are too good a player to not have working nicely.

I just acquired this practically NOS 1949 Motorola 7VT2 7" bakelite TV. It came with it's original box and operating manual. The chassis and cabinet shine like new and all the tags and stampings look like new. This is one of the most attractive little early post-war TV's. I'll have it working soon once I get it over to my friends shop.

I just acquired a 1950 Philco 50-T702 compact 7" TV. This set was an untouched attic find that was complete, but needed TLC. I lightly sanded the cabinet and re-lacquered it as well as fully detailing it. A friend completely restored the chassis and it works very well on it's original Philco CRT. Some call this cute looking set a "cathedral TV" because of it's arched top. A simple, but attractive design, and one of the last classic early small screen TV's.

Dang Deco....You sure have some great looking tv's! And you know how to make them work. I am having trouble with my Magnavox AM/FM tuner. It might have silver mica disease. But I am going to learn on it and have an engineer friend coach me through getting her back to normal.

Mike

1930artdeco said:

Dang Deco....You sure have some great looking tv's! And you know how to make them work. I am having trouble with my Magnavox AM/FM tuner. It might have silver mica disease. But I am going to learn on it and have an engineer friend coach me through getting her back to normal.

Mike

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Hi Mike - Thank you, but I have my sets elec. restored by a long-time friend. He has decades of experience on vintage TV's and strives to make them dependable players. It makes the hobby more expensive, but I feel it's worth because I really enjoy watching these sets. It makes anything you watch on them 2X better! Good luck venturing into repair work. That's actually half the fun of the hobby, but it takes a lot of time and patience.

I acquired this extraordinarily clean and hard to find 1949 Crosley model 9-425 7" portable TV. It's a quality set with a two piece chassis made by Sentinel. It was Crosley only 7" model. It has it's front lid which contains a set of brass rabbit-ear antenna's. You could leave it mounted or remove it. My friend did a very nice job on the chassis resto and it plays very, very good. The photo doesn't do it justice.

I did a trade for a 7" 1948 Hallicrafters T505 in the hard to find optional blonde finish. I like how the front "brow" frame was done in a dark contrasting tone and the metal front panel is in a nice taupe color. The unusual feature is the seldom seen push-button tuner, which has channel one. These were designed by Raymond Loewy and have his clean modern styling cues. They're decent performers, but often suffer from HV fade after playing for a while. This one is pretty good.

Here's a 1957 General Electric 9T002 9" portable TV in metal and plastic . I call it the 1957 Bel Air of TV's because it's got classic mid-century styling and nice aqua/ivory two-toning. The chrome handle is like it's hood ornament! LOL. It's a small and light little gem and one of the earliest truly lightweight portables TV's available in the US. This one has been recapped and plays well, although the picture is typically on the darker side with these. The also were sold under the name Hotpoint.