Thoughts on this 1948 RCA 8T243 - Videokarma.org TV - Video

Tony F · #1 01-07-2022, 12:21 PM

This RCA popped up about an hour away. He's asking $200 Canadian (that's about $154.56 U.S. at today's exchange). Looks like it needs work. Is this basically a 1947-49 RCA clone ? with just the cabinet being different from the other RCA tabletops of the era ? I've read it weighs almost 100 lbs. Tony

Electronic M · #2 01-07-2022, 01:25 PM

I've never owned a Canadian RCA but from what I understand most of their TVs were the same design as US sets and others were modified for 25Hz power.

Yamamaya42 · #3 01-07-2022, 01:29 PM

One thing you can see right away is, that the back of the HV cage is not seen there in that photo, so it's 1) lost or , 2) not installed. As I found out with my FADA 895 ( RCA 630ts clone), not having it on causes a great deal of RFI.

And as always, the standard trio applies, CRT,FBT,& Power-xformer, if any of these are toast, they are ALMOST, but not quite, unobtainium.

But from what it looks like, its close to a RCA 630ts, so it will be hard but not impossible to get working.
Many many paper caps to replace, many out of tol resistors, especially in the IF (cathode resistors ), and the huge voltage divider resistors (candohm) love to go bad too.

init4fun · #4 01-07-2022, 03:43 PM

With the already mentioned missing HV cage cover, plus the missing tuner knob and likely the back is MIA as well, along with kinda shabby veneer all around the cabinet, beat him down to $100 Canadian

Tube TV · #5 01-09-2022, 02:02 PM

$100-150 would be better. I always ask the seller how firm they are on the price even if they were selling it for 50 bucks. Often I can get something for less.

If is was local to me I would lay out $200 for it, but my situation is different. I simply don't see anything that old local. So when I buy a TV I always have to factor in a heavy shipping fee that's often around the same cost, or more than the TV.
If I was in a area where there was sets showing up for sale local I would be wanting to pay less. 100 bucks or less.

The RCA 721TS had a shipping weight of 78 pounds so it's around the same i'd guess.

edison64 · #6 01-10-2022, 05:49 AM

As someone stated, it all depends on the location and how bad you want it, but in this condition, I would say no more than 100 tops the tuner knob that is missing is actually three pieces, so it's three separate knobs. you have the escutcheon that mounts on the cabinet with a clip, then you have the small fine tuning knob and then the larger knob that fits on top of that. for that set up, figure about $50 minimum. if the c r t is good, go for it, but try to get it way down in price... you're looking at a whole lot of paper caps to replace and I mean a lot.