Now If You Wanna Get FANCY....
....You can't do any better than the 1948 RCA
Berkshire Breakfront, with solid mahogany cabinetry by Baker.
The
Berkshire Breakfront incorporated a projection TV, an AM-FM radio and a record player, all for the low, low price of $4300 - which equates to $40,456 today. That's right - Forty. Thousand. Dollars.
In case you can't spot the TV in the picture below, it's behind the drawer fronts, which were dummies. The TV screen rose up from behind the drawer fronts, occupying space behind the glass doors, which were opened for viewing; the TV itself remained down below, with its image projected onto a large screen by means of a lens and mirror system, hence the term "projection" TV. This was a common means of getting a larger screen size in the early days of TV. The radio and record player were in the cabinets on either side of the drawer unit.
These are the dream of many a collector, but it takes big bucks to buy one, big bucks to restore one and big,
big bucks to have a house worthy of this impeccably-crafted bit of Truman-era
luxe. These things make the costliest Magnavoxes and Fishers look like the kind of furniture mobile home manufacturers used to give away with trailers.
