Went to see some sets today

[Charlie]

Today I made some house calls to people that had phoned me in regards to the newspaper story from this past Monday. I saw two sets, and brought home one. I might go back later to get the one i didn't bring home.

This first set is the one I brought home. It is a late-60's Truetone portable 21" b&w set. It played while I was there, but wouldn't tune in stations very well. It looked to be in good condition cosmetically, so I offered the guy 10 bucks for it. He gladly took the ten, and then was on his way to the store to get a 6 pack of beer and a pack of smokes!

When i got the set home, I took off the back to find a 5-tube hybrid with the instant-on feature (tubes partially lit while off). Actually, on the front of the set it says "Insta-Vu" in the top right corner. It wasn't too dirty inside, but still enough dust to warrant cleaning it out. It looks like this Truetone was made by Admiral (the CRT and tubular caps all said Admiral on them).

I found the reason it wouldn't tune in stations well... it looks like the board on the side of the tuner where the antenna connections are got pulled apart. it's only a small board with a few disc caps on it. Apparently, someone took the back off too fast without disconnecting the leads... forced it and broke the board. I tried to make some quickie connections using some jumper wires, and then put it back together.

Well, looks like I knocked something loose because now the set won't fire up. The tubes light, but nothing else comes on. Damn! Well, I'll go back tomorrow and see if I can find what i did.

As far as the raster, it DID fill up the screen completely and had great brightness. Contrast looked good as well. Of course... untill I messed something up. Oh well... I'll find it.

Here is a shot of it below.

[Charlie]

The other set I went to look at was a Maggie console with doors. The wood was really nice and the set was very attractive. Had a couple of the small knobs missing from the front. I looked in the back to find a toob-brightener connected to the CRT, so that kinda influenced my decision of not bringing home the set. Well, the fact that I am running out of room here at home kinda influenced my decision as well!

I got home and looked up the model number and found the set in Sams 205-6. According to Sam, the CRT is a 21EP4A or a FP4A. Maybe I could find one of these at the old TV shop in town. If so, I might decide to go back and get the set if the guy doesn't want too much for it. Since I decided on the spot not to take it, I didn't bother asking him what he wanted for it.

The cabinet was very attractive, so I might go back for it anyway. But for now, I would need to figure out where to put it.

Here's a picture of it from the Sams folder (dated June 1953).

[Charlie]

I got the Truetone playing again. Turned out that I mashed the reset button while putting the back on in a way that opened the circuit. Here's a shot with it playing. As you can see, it's pretty snowy due to the broken board on the tuner. At least everything else seems to work good in this set.

This should be an easy fix for a rainy day.

[Charlie]

i was on the phone with two people today concerning three Curtis Mathes B&W combo units. Three of these big things? I already have two!

As you know, CM cabinets are usually of high quality. You may or may not be aware that Curtis Mathes started out (under a different name) in the late 1800's as high-end furniture makers, hence, the nice cabinets they made for hi-fi and tv beginning in 1957.

These 3 sets are in two different homes here in my area. They belong to elderly couples, so I am going to assume that these sets are probably still very nice looking. I might be going later today to see one of them. If the owner will let me, I will try to get some photos.

If anyone would be interested in these sets, let me know. I certainly do not have the room to house 3 more Curtis Mathes sets!

[Wigwam Jones]

Originally posted by Charlie
i was on the phone with two people today concerning three Curtis Mathes B&W combo units. Three of these big things? I already have two!

As you know, CM cabinets are usually of high quality. You may or may not be aware that Curtis Mathes started out (under a different name) in the late 1800's as high-end furniture makers, hence, the nice cabinets they made for hi-fi and tv beginning in 1957.

These 3 sets are in two different homes here in my area. They belong to elderly couples, so I am going to assume that these sets are probably still very nice looking. I might be going later today to see one of them. If the owner will let me, I will try to get some photos.

If anyone would be interested in these sets, let me know. I certainly do not have the room to house 3 more Curtis Mathes sets!

I have an interesting story for you. When I was a young Wigster of 2 or 3, I had a tricycle. We lived in a three-story brick four-square house in Galesburg, Illinois. This was an old (say early 1900's) house with wood floors and a winding main stairway that went from the ground floor all the way to the top floor. My father traveled for a living, and my mother stayed at home (my parents would eventually have 4 kids).

My mom was absolutely rabid about having a clean house. The house got scrubbed from top to bottom dang near every day! Since I was just past 'toddler' stage, and was now happily riding a tricycle all over ever-thing, she would take me from floor to floor and she cleaned. She had my father install those 'expando' style gates over the top of the stairway on each floor, to keep me from riding my trike down the steps.

But, dear readers, your Wigwam was a clever chap - too clever by half. He figured out quite easily how to flip open the little latch and the expando gate would snap open - very nice.

And the stairs looked so inviting. So very, very, inviting for a young man who would one day decide that there was nothing quite as fun as bouncing a 1946 Willys CJ-2A Jeep up and down the Colorado mountains.

Ah yes. The challenge. Could the stairs be navigated on a tricycle? It sure looked possible.

And so young Wiggy opened the gate on the third floor and cautiously edged his tricycle over the edge of the top step. He extended his pudgy little legs to slow his descent....

And began to plunge at a rather rapid rate down said wooden stairs.

After the first twenty step or so, a corner came up. And your hero could not quite make the turn. But the trike had picked up a great deal of momentum by this point, so over it flipped, and over and over and over. With young Wiggy holding on for dear life (probably not the smartest choice, but Wiggy was not exactly thinking clearly at this point).

I recall seeing ceiling and floor and wooden rails and then the whole scene over again as I flipped end-over-end down the stairs, picking up speed and negotiating corners with the alacrity of a ball bearing in a pinball machine. There was much sturm und drang happening, let me tell you!

At the bottom of the first floor stairs, dear readers, was a closet.

And in that closet was a broken console TV.

A Curtis Mathis B&W console.

It had merely stopped working, but probably just need a new tube or something.

But the rapid insertion of my punkin' haid into the picture tube at a rapid velocity ended any aspirations my dad had harbored that he might one day fix the beast.

Apparently (I don't recall this part), I shot into the closet (the door was open) and over the handlebars of my trike. I went face-first into the picture tube of the Curtis Mathis and came to rest in a less-than-conscious state.

That's where my mom found me, as she came hurtling down the stairs after me, shrieking like a banshee.

I was stretched out flat, face down. Head in the TV and body outside the console. Much blood. My mom told me (many times) in later years that she thought I had decapitated myself. It looked like a body with no head.

I got a bunch of stitches on my punkin' haid. Until years later, when I started going bald, I never really noticed the scar. I guess you can kind of see it now - I can feel it as a sort of flat spot under the skin on my forehead on the left. Heck, it kind of explains a lot about me.

But Curtis Mathis *did* try to kill me. I got proof.

Keep Yer Stick on the Ice,

Wigwam Jones

[Eric H]

Hi Wiggy, welcome to the TV Forum.

Where did you get that shirt? I want one! :D

Eric

[Tony V]

Hi Wiggy,
I like the shirt too bud! I never had my head go thru a picture tube but have had two blow up in my hands and face. I'm still purty :) so i guess they didnt do much damage but hurt like hell just the same.
-Tony

[Wigwam Jones]

Folks,

This is not an advertisement, since I have no financial interest in this company, but here's where I got my funniest t-shirts:

Wicked Jester T-Shirts (http://www.wickedjester.com)

Yer man also wears togs from:

B Offensive T-Shirts (http://www.boffensive.com)

Best,

Wigwam Jones

[Charlie]

Yesterday, I went to a flea market in Vidor, TX look at another set that I received a phone call about since my story in the newspaper. I'll be damned if it wasn't another Curtis Mathes! This makes the 5th CM b&w entertainment center I've seen here locally.

While i'd love to be able to bring these sets home, I simply don't have the room for these coffin sized sets. But then, who would?

This particular set is identical to the one that Eric H has in this photo...

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?threadid=216&perpage=15&pagenumber=4

Many of the calls I have received so far were for sets of the 70's, which I usually do not go for. And out of those, I haven't found anything that I thought would be of any interest to you guys here.

With the majority of these sets... especially the large consoles... these folks are wanting to give them away. The man at yesterday's flea market had a hundred bucks on his CM, but after talking with him for a while, he said taking much less would be fine if he could just get rid of it because he is getting ready to re-locate. Being that he didn't really have that much knowledge of vintage sets, he said he really had no idea of what kind of price to put on it. I had explained to him that these were actually pretty common in our area.

Up until about 7 or 8 years ago, we had a big CM dealer in Beaumont that had been around for many years. I guess that's why I have seen so many of these beasties.

[peverett]

A person at work just offered me an early 1980s console CM TV today. It has some tuner troubles. If anyone wants it, please post. I am near Austin Texas.

This is much newer than the sets that I am interested in.

[Tubejunke]

Jees! I'm feelin kinda weird. I'm on the vintage tv forum and finding discussion on the vintage possibilities or imposibilities of eighties consoles. The reason I say I'm feeling weird is because after I finish this post I'm going to go to my living room and turn on my 1982 Sears console. I never thought about it as being anything "old." Although realistically it is 22 years old. I at my age of 35 see the charm of the early days of tv but I always figured their would be some kind of cut off point as far as interest in electronics. Especially from any kind of vintage/collectable standpoint. I mean 20 years from now are we going to all be raving over Crapaneese plastic tirds from 1998?

I will say this for newer stuff. In some ways I think we reached a kind of engineering plateau somewhere in the late 70s and through the 80s. My TV is a prime example. The reason I use it is the fact that it simply hasnt broken at all since we bought it new. I was a teen when my father brought it home. Finally one of those remote sets WOW! When I got home from the Army and got my own place my father gave it to me. It has seen every day use for 22 years now. Why would I go spend my hard earned paycheck on some piece of junk? I have a 27" super set. I think at that time companies were still striving for perfection of the solid state color television. We were not yet that far from tubes. So in a way I guess we were still pioneering the television world although it doesent seem like all that long ago. Really sets from the time period I am mentioning are the only sets I know of that can play for years and years trouble free. I think in the 90s the best sets were already in the past and the focus, like everything shifted to mass market, low production cost, and away from quality. I tell people all the time that the shift away from quality is no accident. It is a very well thought out plan. Almost a conspiracy. Against the consumer that is. Why make appliances or really anything that is so well built that people will keep them for decades. Sure could sell a lot more stuff if everything broke or became obsolete. LIKE IT DOES!!

Oh and to Wigwam, my man your folks sure had one hell of a big closet!:dunno: I dig your T-shirt as well

[Sandy G]

Wiggy, that about trumps my Black Powder story ! Kewl ! As to "child-proofing " devices...No self-respecting, inquisitive little boy-and LOTSA little girls, too- is gonna let that stuff slow him/her down very much..and why do I get the feeling a lot of the AK fraternity would have sinilar stories to tell?!? -Sandy G.