What is the most valuable set?
 

What TV would be the most valuable if it were to be found in the wild?
Baird Model-C, Farnsworth Prewar set, 1920s Bell Labs experimental, other prewar prototype etc. Also has anyone ever done a database on sets known to exist but no surviving examples found?

Richard

http://www.sfcityguides.org/images/guidelines/tv.jpg

http://api.ning.com/files/8-bWotBgvd...television.jpg

Those would be the top two in my estimation. At least one published source mistakenly (??) listed the Zworykin prototype as surviving.

That bottom pic might have almost been considered Porn back in '29...Look how much LEG that gal is showing...(grin)

Huh? :D
http://www.dialcover.com/home.html

Hi All;
I have a book that shows a schematic for this set or one pretty close to it.. Not much to it.. In one they use two different Super hets and then the TV specific parts for scanning and such.. In the later there is only one super het.. And a wider IF.. And Both used AM sound.. At first they used mechanical scanning, and as quickly as they could they switched to Electronic scanning on the Camera end..
THANK YOU Marty

http://api.ning.com/files/8-bWotBgvd...television.jpg

Looks like the hallway of an old R&D lab. Not the old RCA Sarnoff Lab, they built that place around WW2. But he still had an office at Sarnoff until the mid 80's, but I don't remember ever seeing him there.

RCA Labs had a small display/museum of early color TV. One of the items was a prototype of the shadow mask color CRT. They threw it together late one night, so they could show it to the FCC the next day to convince them to forget about that CBS sequential color wheel thing, and go with the NTSC color system. The CRT looked like an oscilloscope tube, and about 7 inches diameter round. And had a smaller rectangular region where the color phosphors and shadow mask was mounted inside. A proof of concept demo unit. I don't remember seeing complete sets there, not enough room.

maybe the question should be mechanical and electronic , protype and on the market.

mike

There's no answer to this question, because it's all up to the tycoon who may decide for him/herself to spend wild on whatever set takes their fancy. True in all collectibles categories.

With that said, I'd have to bet on early color prototypes. Zenith 43M20 plexiglass, RCA Model I thru V, etc. Exotic prewar sets are indeed in orbit, but I've sold a few of them on eBay (A Fada 5" factory-built 1F5, a Meissner 5" kit, built and in factory optional wood cabinet, and a TRK-12 in decent shape & working), and they didn't go near what I know of as being legitimate standing offers for some color sets.

Charles

Charles,
Those are by far the most common pre-war sets so it's probably not a good comparison to prototype color sets of of which for the most part, none are known to exist. It would probably be better to compare production B&W to production color sets, and prototype B&W to prototype color sets with mechanical sets falling somewhere in between. Of course with any item like these, they're worth what the buyer and seller agree on with little to no precedence to fall back on.

Darryl

http://api.ning.com/files/8-bWotBgvd...television.jpg

I have a reoccurring dream of finding that exact set.

Uhh, yeah, uhh, well, you got a Point there...(grin)

Hi All;
VTS1134, I have a feeling, that your Dream is just that.. As, I don't know for sure, and I would love to be corrected.. But, after Sarnoff Sr., died, that alot or even most of what was (To us) of value, would have been called junk by the powers that be at RCA by that time.. So, who knows what was thrown out to either make room for something else or thrown out so the building could be sold.. I don't know for sure but how much or how many of the Journals and "Experimental" Kinescope, Iconoscope, Image Orthicon, etc., got saved ?? What I have is from published material, which is but a small snoposis of what happened during that period.. 1929 to 1941
THANK YOU Marty

Packard, one of the oldest & most respected names in American motoring, had a similar problem...They had an EXTENSIVE collection of priceless archives, records, significant vehicles from the earliest days of the company, but in 1952, when they were more or less in their death-spiral, they got in a new President, James Nance, who ordered virtually all of it scrapped. Some was saved by a few company stalwarts, but MOST of it got shit-canned. The loss was nearly incalculable.

Hi All;
I have a friend who had tried to obtain some of the early documents and tapes, both paper tapes and magnetic from a company after the company had been sold.. He got some of it years later, but it was a fraction of what had origionally been made.. And was told the rest had been thrown away, in spite of His plea's to buy it from them.. I think they threw it away just to be spitefull toward Him..
THANK YOU Marty

This does not exactly answer your original question, but as far as "most money spent" on a TV, I do recall seeing a GE mirror in lid set (i think it was from 1939) that was listed on ebay several years ago... it was a beautiful set... the cabinet was awesome... and I recall the highest bid was around 11 grand.

At the time of the auction, condition of the insides was not known, but it did look complete. Seems I recall there were comments about the set later... that it turned out to be okay after the innards were gone thru.

I think I still have a photo of it from the auction (at home, not with me now).

I would think a few others around here might remember the set I am speaking of.

I'm sure that at some point, more money has been laid out for a vintage set, but, that's the most I can remember seeing being spent for the public to see.