Foreign Roundies
 

These are some photos I had saved from threads going back several years. Some of you guys that have been around a long time will likely remember these. They were likely lost during the "big switch" a few years ago.

We don't see too many foreign roundies... and I would be surprised if we ever saw more examples other than these few here. Like a CT-100, you'd have to think that there's likely more hiding in a barn somewhere across the globe.

Two of these sets were photographed together... one sitting atop the other.

Pictured is a Hitachi, JVC, and Phillips. I wonder where these sets are today.

The Philips chassis K4, only eight survives in the world. More info.

Philips built some proto set before the first mass production color chassis (the K6), you can see some photo on Marcels TV Museum Website

General Roundie
 

THis was another Japanese roundie photo that got lost. I wish I had saved more of those photos... there were some showing the insides as well.

The original poster had this to say about this set...

Thank you very much for your interest about Japanese roundie.
I would like to answer some questions.

Q1:How old
I think this set was manufactured in 1960.(In Japan,colorcast has started in 1960.)

Q2:How many scan lines
Scan lines are 525 and using NTSC system same as USA.

Q3:What is "GENERAL"
Yaou ELECTRIC Co. LTD used brand "GENERAL" until 1985. Fujitsu(Fujitsu is the famous company about computer in the world as you know.) has merged Yaou and established "FUJITSU GENERAL LTD" in 1985. http://www.fujitsugeneral.co.jp/english/index.html

Q4:Are there many like it in Japan
The production number of roudie is very small. The set was too expensive for the ordinary Japanese to buy. So,roundie is very very rare set in Japan.

Thanks a lot to everyone
from JAPAN

In the first post, is the Phillips set shown in the center picture, or are the pictures indeed in the order listed above them?

jr

Jr, I messed up when I loaded the pix. The photos are lined up as JVC, Phillips, then Hitachi.

My Silvertone is made in Canada
OK not really what you had in mind for foreign, but many eBay vendors think we are!

Charlie, I recall some of those old posts and I'm very glad you saved them and posted them here. I've often wondered about them myself.

Some go back a good number of years, Bryan. The thread talking about the General was in 2004. VK (AK at that time) was only 2 or 3 years old then. I think it would be pretty cool if someone were to pop up with a "fresh" find of a foreign roundie!

In 1964 the Watt Radio made the first italian color set, probably using a roundie tubes. It remains a prototype, and I cannot found any photos

Wow, there were Japanese roundies! how cool is that? Now I have one more thing to put on my list of sets to try and get an example of.

Yes, and some were even sold in the USA. I remember working on several JVC 21" roundies (branded Delmonico), and also I worked on a few Toshiba and Sharp sets with 15" tubes with the big-neck/same socket as the 21FJP22. But the JVC was the only actual 21" roundie Japanese set that I can personally witness as having a 21FJ/FBP22.

Charles

I saw the sams on that set. IIRC, the CRT was an RCA and the color circuit was a clone of the CTC9.

Doesn't surprise me. After all, anyone w/$600 in '56 could walk into a store that carried RCA TVs, plunk it down, & carry one out..RCA would freely sell other MFGers all the clones they could sell...They prolly figured the Japanese weren't smart enuff to figger out how to make a color TV anyway...(grin) Besides, no way you could keep somethin' like Color TV secret very long....

In Europe there were never any round screen sets sold to the public. The UK was the first European country to have a colour service (1967) closely followed by Germany. All sets had rectangular tubes by then. The Mullard A63-11X was the commonest type. 25" delta gun.

There are a few round screen sets in the UK that were made by Bush and Ekco for colour experiments in the 1950s and early 1960s. These used imported RCA CRTs and in many cases some imported valves for the line scan/EHT. A few survive in the hands of collectors and have been restored.

In the book "RCA" by Robert Sobel, he noted that RCA (among others) failed to market TV sets in Japan. The Japanese probably wanted them to be smaller, so they did it themselves, copying along the way as usual.