Phillips "Discoverer" update: found an original remote!!!

[Arkay]

Talk about good Karma (or whatever you call it), I experienced a bit today:

Some here may remember I posted a while ago about getting a "Phillips Discoverer" astronaut-helmet style TV. I was very happy to get it, but one thing it lacked was the remote-control.

I was visiting one of the bigger wholesale dealers not too long after that, and I noticed that she had boxes and drawers full of remote control units, of all tyoes... just hundreds of them. So on the off chance, I described the TV to her and asked her to keep an eye out for the correct remote control for me. I described its appearance to her, based on what I'd seen online. She said she'd look, but didn't sound optimistic at the time. You rarely see them, even online, so I wasn't surprised. I wasn't actually expecting to find one any time soon, if ever, anywhere, although one never knows, so I asked around.

Well, today I went back to her place, and she called out to me and said that she'd found one! Sure enough, it is identical to the ones I've seen pictured online, and matches the set perfectly. I hadn't expected her to actually find one, so I was totally surprised, and needless to say, very happy. Now my set is 100% complete (well, except for original packing, but I don't want to push this Karma thing TOO far... ).

She then told me that it had taken her a long time to locate it, but she had kept looking because she was pretty sure she had one. She remembered selling that model of TV to a buyer from Guangzhou several months ago, who wanted it purely for decoration during a promotion at his store there. She had called the guy later to tell him he'd forgotten to take the remote, and he said he didn't want it. He reported that the TV worked great, but it didn't matter because he only wanted it for its external appearance, not to actually use as a TV. She could keep the remote. Recalling that conversation and figuring the remote had to still be around somewhere, she went through boxes and boxes of remotes until she found it.

She said she was glad to sell it to me for about twelve dollars, but even if I paid fifty bucks or a hundred, she couldn't sell me another one. There was only the one, and she didn't expect to see another any time soon. "If it is meant to be yours, it is yours", she added, referring to a Chinese philosophical tenet, which usually also adds that if it isn't meant to be yours, you won't get it no matter what you do. The implication is that the guy not wanting the remote back then was "written", so to speak, so that I could get the remote to go with my TV today. If that isn't good Karma at work, what is?!

The irony in the story, of course, is that I want a unit that works, not just a decoration, but mine does not work. That guy just wanted the decoration, but his set works perfectly. Oh, well.. maybe I got the "dud" one so that it will get fixed properly and then both sets will work...if he had gotten it, it would have remained "dead".

Now I am doubly determined that one day soon this thing will work again... with the remote, I might even use it as a TV to watch!

[Bobby Brady]

where's the pics?
Is this a European set?
Thanks

[Tony V]

She sounds like a great gal to go through all that trouble for you. I'm happy that yours is now complete.
-Tony

[Arkay]

Originally Posted by Tony V

She sounds like a great gal to go through all that trouble for you. I'm happy that yours is now complete.
-Tony

That lady is actually one of my favorite wholesale sellers. She seems pretty kind-hearted (witness her digging out that remote for me), but works in a difficult, hard-nosed business. She gets a lot of hassles from pushy and sometimes tricky African and Korean buyers, but deals with everything that comes her way with an iron backbone, yet nearly always keeping her aplomb and sense of humor. Almost all of them call her "Momma", and their conversations and negotiations in a broken, pidgin English (since neither side is fluent) sprinkled with a few Cantonese terms are fascinating to overhear. She has THREE large warehouse-like places (that I know of), probably making her one of the biggest dealers around, and she gets a fair amount of unusual and sometimes nice gear. Her daughter also works there, sometimes, and some of her helpers seem pretty friendly/helpful, too. I give these people a .