It's a Sony

[petek]

I found this super neat little Sony Trinitron KV-5000 5" screen at Value Village today for only $4.99 so it definitely was coming home with me. These came out somewhere around 1975 and as I recall were quite pricey, well above my meagre means at the time, but now I have one. I guessing right now it works, just no over the air signal so I'll have to hook it up to my dvd to check it out.

 

[cfz2882]

sony TVs

does look mid-'70s era,neat find!Small,portable TVs were among some of the earliest
products sony started to export to north america,starting around '61 or '62 with
partly transistor,battery operable sets-somewhere i have a '61 popular mechanics
magazine where they test one of these little TVs.

 

[retropia]

That's a cool little Trinitron! Sony was known for its abilities with small color TVs. Mine is from the same time period, a KV-8000 (excuse the dust). My measurements say the screen is 7.5" on the diagonal, but perhaps it was advertised as having an 8-inch screen.

 

[tolivac]

Very nice little Sony "Tummy TV"!Yes,sad no analog broadcast TV to watch on it.

 

[philr]

Nice find!

 

[rp2813]

Digital-to-analog converters are fairly cheap and can be found on craigslist.  Contrary to a lot of reports when the switch to digital broadcasting was made, you don't need a special rooftop antenna and even rabbit ears will work in some areas.

 

I had a KV-17 series from 1977 that ended up in my parents' den.  That TV was running several hours a day for many years and landed back in my hands at some point.  It was our master bedroom TV for quite a while until everything kept turning pink.  We got rid of it about ten years ago.

 

[petek]

It's a good thing cute little portables don't show up all that often or I'd be in more trouble lol. I'd like to have one of those JVC sputnik sets and a GE Portacolor, that would suffice HA.

 

[112561]

Some people have all the luck!!

The only Sony color I have is a KV-1212, and three black and white sets even smaller. I imagine your new mini color set will respond very well to a video player.

 

[countryguy]

That Sony TV looks to be the same one my sister had in her bedroom when I was growing up. It worked for over 30 yrs with no problems.

Gary

 

[petek]

Alan... I'd have loved that one. We only had a 12" B/W as a 2nd set growing up. Before I moved back here 6 years ago I'd found one, sure I even posted pics here but must have left it behind. It might have been a 19/20 in. set though.. my minds a blank, just that it was like new condition.

 

[macboy91si]

KV-1212

Alan, i have this exact set in the storage building. I got this from a friend in Roanoke, it was his growing up. I had this same model as a kid as well, and they are work horses. I have always been impressed with the quality of the older Sony and Panasonic/Matsishitu/National products.

 

It's a little... should we say... loved? But it does work, and I don't think it's a gonner yet. I wanted it to play my Atari 2600 on, and it will serve that purpose very well.

 

-Tim

 

[twintubdexter]

$4.99 for that little Sony is a real bargain. With their post-card like sharp picture I recall how very expensive they were from my manager and then buyer days at The Emporium in SF. Those little Sonys were a target for shoplifters even when they were cabled-down. That whole Sony era was exciting, especially when they came out with their "huge" new 19" Trinitron. Northern California with it's educated consumers ate them up. We could not keep the KV1910 & KV1920 (how do I remember those numbers?) in stock. It was worse when Sony came out with the remote control sets. There was a downside to Sonys and other brands like Sanyo..the hate mail and threats we would receive for advertising foreign brands. The worst was probably Hitachi...no mistaking the country that was behind them.

 

[112561]

Pete & Macboy-I hate to say, mine is wrapped up against the two cats to keep them from clawing the top of the veneer like one tried months ago. I checked it in the store when they still had over the air signal, and it got a presentable picture. I found another nonworking one and left it, unfortunately space is running out, and I have to make drastic changes anyhow. I'd love to find one like Pete's new one, and a Portacolor, even though they are panned by a lot of collectors. I know like the Mustang record player by GE that they have a sound following.

 

[arbilab]

I had a retail-new Portacolor. Sonys put them to MAJOR shame. But when they first came out there was no such thing as a $200 color TV you could carry with one hand.

 

[chromacolor]

Nice Sony!
Twintubdexter.. your post brought back some memories. My Uncle was a Zenith dealer and as a kid, I worked in his shop. It's hard to fathom now, but during that era we would have gotten flack if we had ANY foreign brand on the shelf. Since this was a small town, you also would get the stink-eye if you had a foreign vehicle. Pictured is my 1975 Sony that started it all. It is a 1975 17". Until that time Sonys only had 13” or less screens, I think it had something to do with the technology of the Trinitron tube. Altho still expensive, this set was the first larger screen Sony available to the American public. The picture quality was so fantastic, and the quality so good, it was the beginning of the end for the “buy American Only” mindset. Also.. until the late 80’s early 90’s—the largest screen size you could get in an American set was 25” , and Sony started offering their 26” set in 1979, and in 80 or 81, had a special edition 30” (that retailed for around 6K)

 

[twintubdexter]

Ah, that looks like a KV1722...a sweet little set that probably has a picture that looks as good as day one. Like most people I have TVs all over the house ranging from a 1.5" Panasonic to 50". There's a ceiling mounted projection system too, but I pretty much watch everything on a 9" Sony Triniton I bought way back in the early 80's. I'll probably take it with me next year when I check into Shady Pines.

 

[parnall_doug]

A great Sony thread!

Last year I bought a KV-1320UB from its first owner. She bought it new in August 1973.
It came with its original manual and unused earplug!

Certainly here in the Uk at least, this model is not uncommon, with at least one cropping up on Ebay every couple of weeks or so.

I was brought up with a KV-1800UB, which my parents bought new in 1971. I like the model I have just bought, because it is so similar to the model I was brought up with.
The KV-1800UB seems to be quite a rare beast here nowadays, and I have only seen two crop up on Ebay, in the couple of years or so that I've been keeping an eye on listings. The first one I saw was not in very good order. The second one that cropped up (only a couple of weeks or so ago) looked a better prospect, and I was tempted, but I have too many 'toys' as it is!!

See my link to that listing, and below that is a photo of the one I own.

Doug

Pardon our interruption...

 

[parnall_doug]

And here is the original instruction manual and earplug for the above set!

Doug

 

[petek]

Nice find. I think if someone is of a certain age.. ie younger and not lived with tv's prior to the Sony Trinitron era then they're really not going to grasp how much of a significant improvement (very noticeably visible) they were to conventional sets up to that point in time.