Vintage Game Show Products

[whirlcool]

Recently we have been watching a channel on television which plays old game shows. Some of them are interesting. I like to look at the prizes offered.

We especially like the vintage "Let's Make A Deal" show. When it was originally on back in the 60's/70's with Monty Hall I had a hell of a time balancing the color on our home set. The color on the show seemed faded and not clear, the images look kind of fuzzy compared to evening network broadcasts. Now I know why! The shows were stored on early color videotape rather than film. Even today the colors look faded and the focus is just slightly out of whack.

Anyway we like to look at the "prizes" and hear what they cost back then. SxS refrigerators going for $450, cars that sell for $4,000., cans of soup that sell for $.39 each. My, life was cheaper back then.

It seems that LMAD had quite a bit of Magnavox, GE and TVM television sets from Spiegels. I had never heard of TVM television sets before. And I looked on the internet and can't find anything about them either. Were these someone's house brand? LMAD gave away a bunch of them.Usually they were consoles that had a 25" color TV with a stereo set built in directly over the television screen.

I was also kind of surprised to see Ampex offering quite a wide selection of home stereo. Anything from single compact stereo sets to massive consoles complete with stereo tape. I though Ampex made basically stereo tape recorders and recording tape. Since this show was filmed on the west coast I wonder if some of these products were west coast brands?

It seemed that a lot of the merchandise given away was more MOL than BOL. It's kind of fun to watch.

 

[rp2813]

Ampex was located on the peninsula about 25 miles south of San Francisco for many years.   They might even still be there -- I just never take U.S. 101 to get to The City anymore.

 

When I think of game show brands, Gibson and Broyhill come to mind.

 

Except for Hollywood Squares (I think), which triggers Dicker and Dicker of Beverly Hills.

 

[toploader55]

Wurlitzer, Magnavox, Tappan, Curtis Mathis, Hamilton Beach are a few I remember from the Price is Right

If I recall correctly, a lot of WCI appliances made it's way on to the show after they took over (WCI that is). I can vaguely remember Coppertone Kelvinator Appliances on the Price is Right also.

I remember Desoto/Chrysler was the sponsor for Grouch's "You bet your life".

 

[a440]

Fun!

I have also been watching all of the game shows lately. It is a lot of fun! Like watching them for the first time.
The station "BUZZR" started here June 1st. I have been addicted ever since!

 

[twintubdexter]

vintage game show prizes, a great topic

All those furs from Dicker and Dicker of Beverly Hills and the Cadillac automobiles from Casa de Cadillac in Sherman Oaks. Both are still around. 

 

I wonder too about Ampex, if the building is still there off 101 with it's blue, back-lit lettering "AMPEX." Nearby Hillsborough resident Bing Crosby was a big investor. Listen carefully and you will hear all the young members saying "who's Bing Crosby?"

 

[whirlcool]

Sadly, Ampex is no more. They filed for bankruptcy in 2005, laid off their last employee in 2008 and sold off all their divisions, including the recording and tape divisions. Their video recording hardware is now considered obsolete.

Sad for a company that at one time for a long time was the most innovative company of its kind around. But they did have a very interesting history.

Yes, Dicker & Dicker of Beverly Hills. Lots of those furs on LMAD. They are still in business.

Ampex - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[tolivac]

The remaining ghost of Ampex is with a company-Quantegy-they sell digital storage mediums.-and recording tape to recording studios that STILL use analog Ampex machines-they still have a loyal following in the recording industry.Their older machines are so stout they won't die and just keep going like Everready Bunnies.I have kept many 300s,350,440,ATR100 still going.Many music groups want to be recorded as analog-even today-the analog recording process is actually "part" of the musical instruments!Musicians like the sound of overloaded analog recordings.Can't "fake" that digitally-same with REAL Hammond organs-Just cannot be faked digitally!And there are still companies that supply record/playback amps for Ampex and Scully recorders.Studer still makes a small line of multitrack analog recorderes.So--tape has to be available for them.Quantegy to the rescue!

 

[arbilab]

I could tell you everything you ever wanted to know about Ampex. I spent weeks in Redwood City, worked for them once, interviewed with them 3 times, owned the stock. But I won't right now, the sun's coming up and there are only 2 episodes of I Love Lucy left.

The worst thing that happened to Ampex-- and several other bigname technology companies-- was being acquired by Allied-Signal. Who also bought Honeywell and changed their name thereto to obscure their bad reputation.

Prior to that, one could buy an entire television station (minus the transmitter) from Ampex. After that, much of what they had already sold became orphaned by lack of proprietary parts.

Here's the WIKI. Of course it includes some meandering vagueries and some press releases. I wrote the part about ACR-25, the most amazing technological feat of the century except maybe the moon landing.

Ampex - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[whirlcool]

While in high school I always wanted a Ampex R2R machine. Too expensive, so I ended up with a Roberts with the Crossfield Head. I was heavily into audio even back then!

 

[firedome]

Ampex reel to reel machines...

for the consumer market were absolutely top notch, we once had a 1250 deck that came out of a Fisher President ca. 1962, excellent performer, should have kept it.

Their limited range of consumer products in general were excellent and mostly seen on the West coast. We do still have an Ampex 402 stereo tube preamp that came out of one of their TOL consoles.

 

[cuffs054]

Please tell me "Casa de Cadillac" didn't put huge chrome name plates on the back of the Devilles!

 

[whirlcool]

Didn't see any. But in Houston here back when they did that with the metal dealer nameplates we had a dealer named "Bland Cadillac". So the metal plate said "Bland Cadillac Houston Texas". I always thought that was funny. BTW, Bland was shuttered in 1987 because the land the dealership was located on was sold to real estate developers. Bland Cadillac had a long history dealing with the money of Houston, especially old money. GM bought the franchise back from the Bland family.

 

[rp2813]

Cuffs, if you pop by Casita del Campo in Silverlake, you might find a few Caddies from there in the parking lot . . .

 

[passatdoc]

"The Spiegel Catalog, Chicago, Illinois, 6-0-6-0-9...

Allen, this was the best known zip code in America: 60609, and for those of us NOT from Chi-cah-guh, Spiegel was synonymous with Chicago. What we didn't realize was that Spiegel was NOT a bricks and mortar store (like Sears, Monkey Ward, Marshall Field), it was mail order only, so Chicagoans knew less about Spiegel than we did (those of us who could shop the catalog free of sales tax; IL resident coughed up 5%).

Are you sure the electronic items carried a "Spiegel" badge? Or were they "from Spiegel" (i.e Motorola or some other brand carried by Spiegel and supplied to the tv show by Spiegel). Maybe Jay The Announcer said "a combination 25" tv-stereo from Spiegel"?

FYI Ampex was named for the inventor of videotape, AMP were his initials (I don't remember his name) and ex stood for "excellence".

404 - PAGE NOT FOUND

 

[whirlcool]

Yes, the items were from Spiegel's catalog.

I've driven past the Spiegel's warehouse when it was in operation. It was on 35th street in the Bridgeport section of Chicago. The building was an entire city square block in size and about six stories tall. The only way you knew it was Spiegels was a small decal on the entrance doors.

Another thing we noticed today on the vintage LMAD was that often the manufacturer of the product offered was not mentioned. Today they had a dishwasher that the just referred to as a "dishwasher" with no brand name or source store. Then a little while later they had a patio set that they just referred to as a patio set, no brand or source mentioned. I wonder what that was about?

 

[passatdoc]

 

[passatdoc]

http://https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzgDaA9lni4

 

[arbilab]

coulda seen this coming>>

Ampex was named for the founder, Alexander M. Poniatoff. They were a WW2 defense contractor building electric motors for aircraft. A war prize German Magnetophon fell into their hands and Ampex engineers reverse engineered it with Bing Crosby's money. Bing hated live radio performances but wouldn't suffer the degradation in fidelity of the day's mechanical transcriptions. Magnetophon recordings were indistinguishable from live (after AM broadcast).

The company invented a WORKABLE videotape recorder (introduced in 1956) after some rather ridiculous attempts by RCA and the Brits. I can look up the names of the development team if anyone really wants to know. One was Ray Dolby-- yes, THAT Dolby. One was Shirley Temple's husband Charles Black.

 

[tolivac]

Ampex-Beleive someone mentioned to me he worked at a UHF TV station that had an Ampex station package-this included a 110Kw 3 Klystron transmitter supplied thru Ampex.The station was in the Boston,Mass area-back in the early 60's.The power supplies had mercury vapor rectifiers-and a rubber mallet hung by a section of the output transmission line-It was used to hit the line when it arced over!He didn't have any pictures of the rig.I wanted to see it.Don't think Ampex really built the rig-just supplied it-but under their name.And have seen both Ampex and RCA videocart machines.Both were pretty heavy competitors in the age of broadcast-analog.I have breifly used some of those older ampex Quad VTR'sone was tubed-other SS.Were fascinating peices of machinrey-but think today--you can have a more capable camera and recorder right in your pocket!