My 'new' tv from 1960 or 1961

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-Tim, yes it does light up which VHF channel in the center of the channel selector dial. -Lawrence, I wish I did have that tile. That was out of the TVs original home. A modest 1955 rancher. It was quite lovely. The new owners were 'carefully updating" it... I hope they don't rip out the floor or get rid of those turquoise sofas! I have 7 vintage sets, mostly Zeniths from 1959, this 1960-ish, 1963, 1969, 1975, and 1981. I also own a 1962 Magnavox stereo console with black and white set. This one has horizontal issues, no picture, but a lit raster. The sound is awesome though! I wish the other sets sounded as great. Here's my 1959, which I happen to have a picture of handy. Who knows the movie?

[this post was last edited: 6/3/2014-21:20]

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Ditto Allen, I have brand loyalty to vintage Zeniths. The magnavox is most likely the one that belonged to the lady I delivered meals on wheels too. I found it in the thrift store not long after she passed. It was too cool of a set to not get.
 
Can't fool an Admiral fan!

112561, that is a classic Admiral. Danish modern, pre-1963.
This boy was born and raised in Chicago aka Admiral town.
I cut my teeth on them Admirals. Actually was running my Admiral Color today. Rainy day project, but it still runs.
 
Our family always had Zenith's except for one. We had an Admiral (about 1965 or so) with the tilt out control panel. But we only had it for two years as there was so much opening and closing of the panel the television started to have problems from it.

We had a 64' Zenith 25"(?) square screen set (first year?) that lasted until 1972 when it was replaced with a Zenith System 3 25" set. That lasted until 82 or so.

The best Zenith we had was a 17" color portable that was in the den. It had the clearest, sharpest picture I had ever seen on a color set. My sister grabbed that one in the early 80's. I would imagine it was a 71' model or so.

I had a Zenith 21" table model color set with real wood cabinet and a built in speakerphone. Nice set, the year before Zenith offered the "zoom" feature on their sets. While this set looked nice and had a great picture after it was about three years old it started to blow power supplies. After the third power supply was installed in as many years the set was stolen when our house was burgularized. We replaced it with a new 91' Zenith which was really a Goldstar or LG set. Three years later that one caught fire in the middle of the night. Our dog Brandy woke us up to alert us of the fire. Fortunately when I unplugged it all the sparks and smoke stopped coming out of it. The fire department moved it outside for us in case it decided to have a repeat performance. That was the last Zenith for us.
 
That's a shame, Allen.

This 1981 Zenith, which I still own and use, was our family set, and eventually my bedroom tv growing up. iI replaced the 1953 or so table top model that my parents had inherited when they first got married (I wish they had kept it!)  That was why they bought another Zenith set, because it lasted.  They replaced it as the main tv in 1994 with another Zenith, which lasted about 15 years before it started sounding awful.  My father refused to have it repaired and then one day there was a loud "pop" and it died.  My grandmother got one around 1997 and something similar happened to it before it bit the dust after about 7 or 8 years.  Interestingly enough, the smaller sets bought around 1990-1993 that she, my great aunt, and parents bought lasted for over 15 years each working fine as they slowly left the family heading to thrift stores.

[this post was last edited: 6/4/2014-21:30]

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Magnavox was really more into their Hi-Fi console systems then TV's-remember a Zenith table model set while growing up-was the "parents" set-our Hoffman was in the basement.That thing had a hidious green screen-but watched many an episode of Mickey Mouse,Lassie,Howdy Doody, and so on.If we were really good or some special show came on we were allowed to watch the Zenith-SO MUCH BETTER-even though it was monochrome-but not green monochrome.The channel selector dial indicated the channel # on a tiny projected screen in the center of the dial.The set went with Mom during the divorce.It was still working when she and my Stepdad traded it in on an RCA "Accucolor"in the early 70's.Watching "Outer Limits" was all the more spooky on that old Zenith.
My Mothers mother used to be a Magnavox Salesperson.She had a few sets in her basement-A Magnavox BW console,A Scott Radio console(Really wanted that-loved to listen to it while visiting her house)And of all things a Zenith color console.Don't know what happened to these when she died.So wanted that Scott!!
 
Tilt-out control panels

I always thought those tilt-out control panels on mid-1960 Admirals were among the most elegant of designs of the time.
I only have met two in my life. One burned the flyback completely. The other was in a dwelling that burned.
... Maybe Whirlcool, it was good that y'all got rid of it.
Mid-1960 Admiral color sets had a propensity to catch fire - some even caught fire on the showroom floor. Admiral was sued and it was revealed that the flybacks ran hotter in reality than the tests in their lab. Those chassis had comprehensive modifications afterward.
I was just a child then, but learned about all this later.
My 1970 Admiral has a silicone, not wax flyback. Regardless, I don't leave a vintage TV run unattended.
SPACE-PHONE TVs were cool but, as you found, the power-supplies did poop out a bit. I was just starting in TV and Zenith had moved their board-repair program to Mexico. Afterward, rebuilt boards had a very high failure rate for quite some time.
 
Paul . . .

My thoughts exactly, maybe she's wearing a heavily padded bra that makes the picture tube bell less uncomfortable. Still doesn't explain how she can so easily lift a luggable table model TV, especially with no handles.

 

There is an urban legend I've heard more than once about a department store TV department that had a rash of thefts of fairly good sized table model TVs back in the '70s, way before flat screens and efficient store security cameras. Eventually the store realized that the thefts mostly happened in winter. The thief was finally caught: a tall and obese woman who would conceal a special harness under a floor length  winter coat. When nobody was looking she'd manhandle a display model under the coat and waddle out with it between her legs . . . I'd love to know if this really happened!
 
My phone won't let me use the new photo uploader. Here is the 1960 on. As mentioned before it needs horizontal and general picture help. The sound is awesome.[this post was last edited: 6/5/2014-20:24]

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