1958 Philco TV

[danemodsandy]

Alan:

I would still suspect a 27-inch Maggie of being a projection set, if such a huge screen size was available from that company in 1952. DuMont's Royal Sovereign was considered enormous at 30 inches at that time. I've done some Googling, and I have found references to 27-inch Maggies as early as '56, but not earlier, at least not yet. <br
Since Maggie was very much a luxury brand, they did tend to have sizes and features sooner than other makes, so this is hardly the last word, and I should stress that the info available on Google appears to be a long way from complete. It would be interesting to see exactly what Maggie was offering as a 27-inch set so early. Those Royal Sovereigns were sort of like Packards were to car owners - so expensive, even other luxury-make owners couldn't always justify the expenditure.

 

[112561]

Hey Sandy

I know that one can't always go by what they read, even with company literature. I've never been lucky enough to see the wealth of literature they've put out on their products, so I wouldn't say it's fact either. Magnavox doesn't seem to archive historical information either, they proved that to me thirty years ago. I think it was just last year I saw a pic of their first color television, and it was made for them by someone else, beginning in 1955.

 

[whirlaway]

Magnavox Color

Almost all companies that offered early color were just rebranded RCAs.Quite a few companies offered 27 inch sets and they were direct view.Starting around 1954.Good places to look for these ads are old Life magazines and House and Garden.The Dec issues usually have quite a few TV ads.

 

[112561]

I have many Life magazines, and exactly one House Beautiful, no House and Garden that I can recall. I was thinking RCA was the Magnavox color set supplier, that seems the most logical. I wish I could find a lot of the early Magnavox color info without relying on eBay. Life magazine has been heavily scanned and posted on Google, as has been featured here and on Vacuumland.

 

[kenwashesmonday]

I believe Magnavox used to measure their screen in cubic inches <br
Ken D.

 

[danemodsandy]

Alan:

I found that Zenith made a 27" direct-view BW TV in '53, so it's possible that Maggie had one in '52, after all <br
BTW, RCA was not first on the market with their Merrill CTC-100 colour television. They were scooped by Admiral first, and then Westinghouse. <br
The Admiral C1617A was available for sale on December 30, 1953. The Westinghouse H-840CK was on offer 2 months before the RCA set, although it used RCA's colour CRT. <br
Here's a link to a copyright photo of the Admiral C1617A <br
http://www.tvhistory.tv/1954-Admiral-C1617A-color.JP <br
And here's a link to a page showing a lot of CTC-100 info, with a gorgeous shot of a Merrill in operation next to a Westinghouse H-840CK, also in working order <br
http://community-2.webtv.net/stevetek/StevesCT100 <br
The CTC-100 Merrill began production in March of 1954, with the first set being delivered on April 27 of that year. <br
Looking over some of the TV history pages, I see an interesting trend. It appears that there was availability of large-screen (27" and larger) BW sets in the early 50s, but by '55 or 56, that died out, with 21" sets being the largest most manufacturers offered. I don't have any idea why that should have been; perhaps consumers weren't interested in paying the premium price for a set over 21" yet.

 

[whirlaway]

Waiting for color

RCA was really pushing color in 55&56,so for the price of a Deluxe 21inch,you could get a table model color in 56.They really cranked up colorcast by then during the week.CBS was the last to go full color at night prime time,I think they were still fuming about the FCC not adopting their system in 1950.Although in 1956&7 they did their share of live color shows,Red Skelton was one of them.They only survive as B&W kinescopes.Dinah Shore was known as the first lady of color television during those years with her Chevy Show.PeterPan was shown in color live in 1955 and 56 and then on color videotape in 1960,I watched it the other day it still looks fresh,hard to believe Mary Martin was 47 then.

 

[112561]

Color Video Tape

Whirlaway, and all, here's a clip of the oldest known color videotape, the entire program and commercials exist, but not sure if it's released on DVD <br
Ken D.--Magnavox did indeed advertise as late as 1969 of screens in square inches, and also diagonal measure. Sandy, it's a shame 27" screens didn't take off for even black and white, but I guess consumers weren't as obsessed with screen size like today. I hadn't thought either that Admiral and Westinghouse had predated RCA with color receivers. There was also Columbia and Motorola, but I don't know if they were completely manufactured by those companies. Other makes offered color, probably from RCA to their specs, so they would also have something to compete with.

 

[danemodsandy]

Bobby:

Actually, the FCC did licence CBS to do colour broadcasting via their field-sequential system, and CBS both broadcast colour in their system and sold sets for it, only two of which are known to survive. They stopped at the FCC's order in late '51. Stories vary on what happened. The official FCC party line was that colour was halted temporarily because of the need to conserve materials for the Korean conflict. Cynics said RCA dug deep and did whatever it had to, to see to it that its NTSC system was adopted, which it was <br
CBS had bought a TV manufacturer, Air King, to get the production capacity to make the sets for its system. The FCC's reversal on licencing the field-sequential system left CBS holding production facilities it had to put to use in some other way. They renamed Air King CBS-Columbia, making and selling sets through most of the 1950s. The most interesting CBS-Columbia set of them all is shown below; it's a 1956 colour set using RCA components and technology. It is far and away the most beautiful modernist colour TV console of that period; it was designed by no less than Paul McCobb <br
So, CBS was able to get over itself enough to make very fine NTSC colour sets under the CBS-Columbia name. As to why they were slow to adopt colour on the network itself, I think the answer might lie in the company's viewer demographics and their programming. CBS has usually gone after an older, less urban viewer than the other networks, and in the '50s, those folks were not remotely ready to buy colour. Also, CBS had such big attractions, like Red Skelton, that there really wasn't that big a need to add colour - Skelton was pulling viewers in fine without it. At least, that's my thinking about the situation. <br
Also remember that RCA owned NBC, and TV sets were not a sideline for RCA, the way they were with CBS's CBS-Columbia Division. RCA made abso-damn-lutely sure that prospective colour set purchasers had plenty of NBC programming in colour to justify their purchase <br
My dad was with RCA for a long time, and I still like to kid him about how incredibly, jaw-droppingly bad their styling was in the '50s. The CTC-4 and CTC-5 generations were downright ugly (we had a CTC-4 set, the Seville 21, for many years). That CBS-Columbia set's styling was so far ahead of anything RCA had to offer in '56, it was not remotely funny.

 

[cadman]

Funny this discussion is going on right now. I just picked up an RCA color roundie (looks like a '64 to me) tossed out back behind a tv/app store this week. Though being buried in ice and 12" of snow, it doesn't look too bad though it'll need cataract surgery <br
The only 27" direct view set I've ever seen in person is in the basement; a Setchel Carlson in a gigantic weathered blond cabinet....and a broken CRT neck. Everything on the set has been scaled to keep the proportions of the screen. The knobs are almost comical in size <br
Re those typical RCA cabinets, there was a whole lot o' "ugly" back in the day we tend to forget about. It wouldn't be a long shot to figure more people have heard of the Eames' now than when they were doing their best work. -Cory

 

[112561]

I briefly had a 1957 RCA color console, was forbidden by my parents to bring it into the house. A man bought it from me, put about $50 worth of work into it, and perfect tv. His grandson got behind it and totally detuned the whole set. The design was undeniably kludgy. Here's a slightly more attractive and quite rare Motorola.

 

[danemodsandy]

I Think...

...Part of the problem with designing attractive colour sets in the '50s was the sheer size of the required cabinet. Our Seville 21 was about the size of a 30-inch range, and was probably heavier. <br
However, McCobb (a very famous designer in the '50s and early '60s, far better-known to the average consumer than the Eameses) did manage to do a great job with that CBS-Columbia set, bulk or no bulk. Alan, that Motorola is also pretty nice looking, though I hate to think of the stresses on those canted legs. They were holding up some serious weight.

 

[danemodsandy]

Cory - Royal Sovereigns

Cory: If I'm not mistaken, the DuMont Royal Sovereign's picture tube is one of the more reasonable ones to rebuild, since only its face and tube neck are glass. I understand that it's possible to replace the gasket between the glass and metal components. Am I wrong here?

 

[112561]

Eames Era-Most Abused EBay Term

McCobb's CBS television was nothing short of a masterpiece. Wouldn't I love to have that one myself! <br
I'd be inclined to believe the name Seville would be attatched to one of RCA Victor's more elegant designs of the period, not the characterless box with little stubby legs or the one that sat flat on the floor. Would yours have had doors on it?

 

[tolivac]

Glass-metal picture tubes don't have a gasket-but a dumet metal to glass seal-the metal is specially treated so the melted glass will seal to it.Same with glass metal transmitter tubes I use at the transmitter site.Ceramic metal the same sort of way-tubes and vacuum capacitors.these can have glass envelopes too.

 

[112561]

Wow! I got Color TV!

Here's a slightly modified color set, RCA Victor's "Wingate".

 

[whirlaway]

Ugly?

I have a 1956 ctc5 with a modern and beautiful cabinet,also the chassis wasnt nearly as bulky as the CBS and the CBS was a 19 inch.The 15 inch RCAS are the ones losing vacuum have been for years the 21axp22a like in my set have held up well.The Korean war had nothing to do with the color war as such.Life magazine in 1950 ran several articles on the two systems CBS was actually a mechanical one while RCA was the first electonic one.the Rca was ok but cbs was close behind.CBS did broadcast the big screen celebrity shows in color.Not the simple weekly sitcoms.Lucy was almost in color but it was cost prohibitive at the time.Thanks Bobby

 

[112561]

In all fairness, not all of them were. Even my favorite makes had some fugly designs <br
Is this a Seville?

 

[danemodsandy]

Here's a Seville 21

Alan: The photo below is the only one I can find of a Seville 21. It was a modernist design in red mahogany. The way we got ours was, my second cousin owned a Western Auto in Carrollton, GA, and like many small-town owners, did the servicing of the sets he sold. Occasionally, he would run into a set that stumped him, and my dad - who was far and away the best tech in Atlanta - would go down and lend him a hand. <br
Sometime around '62, he ran into trouble with a backlog of sets he couldn't fix, and asked Dad to help, which Dad did. In gratitude, he asked Dad if he could use another stumper - an RCA colour set he'd taken on trade-in and which No. Body. had ever been able to get working properly. Dad said yes, we loaded it up, and we took it home. In '62, a colour set would not have really been affordable for us, even though Dad worked on them every day. <br
At any rate, we got it home, and oy, did that thing look strange sitting surrounded by Mom's maple Early American furniture! Dad got to work on it, and found it was every bit as troublesome as advertised; it took a long time to get the set reliable. A new picture tube was involved at some point. But once he got it settled down, it served us for years <br
There's a funny story about me and that Seville; a colour set was a Big. Honking. Deal. in '62, and of course, the instant I got to school, I bragged about it. You have to understand that this school was full of kids from blue-collar and minor white-collar families; we all lived in clean, tidy up-to-date homes, but very few people in that place and time had dishwashers, air conditioning or other such luxuries. My teacher, the evil and dread Mrs. Price, got wind of my boast, promptly decided I was telling tall tales, and called my mother to let her know All About It. There was nothing that made Mrs. Price happier than calling parents with tidings that guaranteed a kid a whipping; there was hardly a set of glutes in Joseph P. Humphries Elementary that had not felt the sting of the woman's epic wrath, however indirectly <br
Imagine the old witch's amazement when Mom told her that yes, we had a colour set now, and that she was welcome to drop by and watch a bit of Andy Williams or something with us! In 1962, kids did not often win a battle with a teacher fair and square (and I paid for it later, big-time, but that's not a story fit for the delicate ears of this group). <br
Anyway, the Seville 21 is in the grouping below, along with its base-model sibling, the Havilland 21, which was the same cabinet without the cant-legged base.

 

[112561]

Our Mrs. (Dorothy) Price, 4th grade, was delightful!

Showed you that fancy set, because I thought I could make out the word "Seville". Yours, actually wasn't as prehistoric as my set was. And mine wasn't heavy, my friend John brought it home here on top of a little mail cart, like they used to use in the '60s. Contemporary Mahogany does rather clash with the spindly Early American, we had it for years too, not the expensive type either. <br
We got our first color set in '78, a metal Zenith on a plastic Danish swivel base. Then in '84 we got a Zenith consose with remote that lasted until '96, then I talked Mom into getting a $398 RCA stereo console, that one is wracked with convergeance problems. Constantly have to reset the color. Not going generic black flat screen yet!