A beast on CL
 

I would so totally get this one if I had the room!
Someone has to save this!!!

http://sacramento.craigslist.org/ele/561103184.html

Looks like a nasty caterac on it :( ... I'm trying to decide.. SS or tube amp, but i bet it has some decent speakers in it...

Here's the page of a curtis mathes catalog showing b/w version of that (their biggest) console. According to an earlier page in the catalog it's a tube amp, and the tuner and amp are both on the same chassis. But it makes a big deal about the new "all solid state stereophonic 4 track tape recorder".

I'm sure that was the shiznitz in its day. Worthy of a full restoration!

"Color Convertible
 

What does "Color Convertible" mean in the ad?

OMG!!! I've never seen anything like that before. It is as long as my living room! This is sure to make some ones wife or GF quite angry when she sees it! LOL!! But still worth saving, she'll get over it! I wish it were in WI.

What a unit!! Looks like maybe the television section could be swapped out for a color chassis and tube upon request and another several hundred or maybe a thousand $$$$. That unit on Craigslist may have been converted; who knows?? Only thing I can think of. Defiinitely worth restoring though.

It doesn't decribe anywhere in that book I have what the "color conversion" is. I would assume that is the "color converted" unit up there on CL. Someone should pick this thing up, if anything just so we can see what color chassis they used, I would expect they just swapped in the RCA CTC-15 chassis with a different tuner, like in my Philco. Too far away for me though.

That big beast looks to me to be a Zenith and not a Curtis Mathis. I've had a couple of Zenith consoles that look like this minus the TV, and they are VERY nice. Tube amp and tube tuner with a pair of nice Jensen horn tweeters and twelve inch Zenith woofers. If I weren't 2500 miles away I'd grab it!!

...

Oh man you are in for it! My wife would kick my so hard my grandparents would feel it!

That thing's a monster...

Put 4 wheels on it and it'll double as your car...

4 wheels?............. 16 wheels for interstate haulage!

I dated a girl in the 60's whose dad bought one of these. The B&W set could be replaced with a color set.

Yes, you got that right... Not "have room for it" but "have A room for it".

If I had 3.5 acres and a big steel building like a friend I know (not in the S.F. Bay Area), I could have all kinds of fun old sets. One nice combo (and smaller sets) is all I had room for here, though.

That “cataract” looks more like the neck was sheared off the CRT, probably from moving it.

IDK, IT's discolored like a PVA cataract. A sheared neck usually appears as a clear spot on the CRT.

From an internet history of The Curtis-Mathis Corp.
A few recollections devoted to color conversion of C-M black and white receivers to color.

"During Vaughans visit to the Athens plant, Curtis Mathes himself announced to the select group of dealers including Vaughan that C-M Corporation had solved a marketing dilemma by introducing a truly convertible color TV. Vaughan notes that during that period, many potential TV customers were reluctant to invest in either another black and white or color receiver. Consumers expected that vastly improved color TVs were on the immediate horizon. Many had chosen to postpone buying a new set until the expected improvements were introduced.
Mathes had a plan to offer a monochrome TV that could be converted to the latest color model at a later date. His company would guarantee a fixed price for the conversion. Thereby, all objections to buying a new TV today would be put to rest.
He proposed to build every Curtis Mathis black and white and color TV chassis the same size with the same number and placement of controls. When a customer was ready to upgrade his Curtis Mathes monochrome receiver to an improved color model, his dealer merely ordered a C-M color TV in an inexpensive, painted metal cabinet. He would slide out the old chassis and replace it with the new color works. The old chassis was now reinstalled in the black metal box and offered for sale on the dealer's floor as a rebuilt TV.
Unfortunately, Vaughan reports, there must have been a few details that needed further attention. That was the first and only time I heard of the revolutionary color convertible TV sets."

Here's a link to the complete page:
http://www.gvtc.com/~edengel/TexRad.htm C

-Steve D.

I have its smaller brother
 

I picked up a CM entertainment center in the same product line with just turntable, am/fm and color set, I can tell you it is very heavy.

I wish I had room and a truck. My wife just bought a crappy IKEA-style entertainment center--I would rather have this.

I gave away a CM B&W console. It took 4 people to lift it in to the truck. This console had a 21" B&W TV, stereo, phongraph and reel to reel tape deck. The cabinet was not as long as the beast in this thread, but was talller.

To much weight for me! The CTC9 RCA console that I have weighs less.

Another thing, the CM plant in Athens Texas still exists(at least it did that last time I was in Athens a couple years ago). It was empty and I heard that it needs an enviromental cleanup before the site can be used. Supposedly, CM buried some electronic parts and chemicals there.