Oh ! the Horror

[Oldstuff78]

Have any of you seen those freaks on you tube smashing vintage electronics ? I didn't watch but a second of one clip, but they were smashing a console TV (looked to be a 80s set) and then I saw a listing for them smashing a console stereo.

Idiots like that is what makes old stuff become completely obsolete. Kind of like people who get old vintage jewlery and melt it down into scrap or people who paint and beat old fine crafted furniture into shabby chic garbage.

I cringe to think if they did anything to pre 1970's stuff.

I need a tranquilizer or a good stiff drink.

[AUdubon5425]

I just don't understand what kind of thrill the younger generation gets out of destroying so much stuff. It's not like they're chopping something up because the garbage wouldn't otherwise take it off - I could understand that. No, they have this maniacal joy in destroying anything.

They obviously never had to work and save to buy anything. I have come to the conclusion that the age of maturity has receded ten years. Lastly, I don't have a manicured & landscaped lawn, but if my yard looked like the ones in many of these videos I sure wouldn't be showing it to the world on youtube!

[zenith2134]

Now, I've smashed up my share of TV sets but never anything of value. I can recall destroying Sylvania Supersets, an 80s Magnavox, and tons of BPC (1990s) sets.

It got to the point where it wasn't worth it anymore since A) It's stupid and pisses people off and B) It's a freakin' mess to clean up! Hard to justify a minute of assinine fun for a half hour of cleaning up chemical-laden glass shards....

But yeah I've seen a few YT videos where antiques have been obliterated by a sledgehammer or small explosives. Silly!

[leadlike]

I don't know if it's a generational thing so much as something for young people to do-my dad used to smash tvs in the junkyard and he wasn't supposed to go near the back alley by the tv shop because it was full of crt glass from kids smashing them as well-and all this almost fifty years ago.

Before I got into electronics, I too smashed my fair share of plastic sets, but obviously not anymore. We always did it because it seemed like there would be a fairly dramatic explosion by shooting/smashing out a crt. Luckily for us, we were never harmed. Although I remember caving in the face of a crt and immediately asking what all this white powdery dust was that was now settling all over us....

[zenithfan1]

They're all idiots in my opinion. That reminds me....I still have that flat screen out in my yard. Time to start smashing the real crap. I don't mind people smashing the stuff from the late 90's and newer, that's all that stuff is good for anyways. But I get a little pissed to see them smashing the good stuff.

[Oldstuff78]

I noticed in their video descriptions they say something like "We know Vintage Collectors Hate Us". I didn't stick around to watch the demo on the 1 video I clicked on.

I'm a vintage fanatic and can't stand to see old stuff trashed. I have this quirk that it all needs to be saved or rescued. I recently saw a video where this dude takes old Sunbeam Mix Masters and makes them into crappy gizmos.

[Aussie Bloke]

I'd say a lot of teenagers have the mind of Beavis and Butthead and get their kicks out of breaking things, explosions, animal cruelty etc., an unfortunate trait for the immature and when they grow up maybe a lot of them will regret doing some of those things. These kids should get educated in school of the importance of antiques and preservation of technological history so there will at least may be a reduction in this sort of behaviour, though you'll still get a lot of Beavises and Buttheads out there that will not care and get high off destroying things.

Basically to them stuff like this is junk and they prefer the age of modern technology like the flat screen plasma TVs and technological history isn't of importance to them.

On the same note, I've noticed a lot of us collectors don't see much importance of the more modern TV sets, probably because they come in abundance because of more automated mass production and are practically throwaways if a jungle IC goes faulty as it's cheaper to buy a new set than pay a TV repairman to replace them, well I've come to think the later TV sets are also of technological historical importance in the evolution of TV and will in some decades time be also considered collectors items and they would eventually become scarce like the antique pre-70s sets. The old saying goes one mans trash is another mans treasure.

I for one have never smashed up TVs or electronics but in my teens I have been guilty of cannibalising a 1970s Grundig colour TV and a late 70s Sony colour TV for its components as both TVs were stuffed beyond easy repair anyhow. Back then I was interested in the components and re-using them for some electronic projects. I got rid of the set bodies after and just kept the components. I now regret it especially the Grundig set as it would of been a very rare set imported from Germany, but yeah values change. I now have a mid 70s Philips colour set sitting under my house, as I'm not as technically minded as you fellas I can't do much with it but at the same time I refuse to put it out for curbside pickup.

Anyhow it's one of those shit things us collectors have to face, and there's not much we can do to stop it unless we were there just when the destroying is about to take place.

[bgadow]

I don't think I ever destroyed a set for fun; I've destroyed plenty just to get rid of them, because they were "junk". Usually I burnt them since it was easier than lifting a sledgehammer. Many/most of the sets I destroyed as a teenager are things that would get me thrown off this group these days! I can think of plenty of 60s color sets. But they were junk then. Trouble is, an 80s console tv is "junk" today. Most 70s models, too. I still say if you don't want to see them destroyed, put your money where your mouth is. If you are willing to buy every System III console that comes along, great! Unfortunately we just can't save them all.

I do have a Magnavox LCD that a repair shop gave me. After I confirm that it's garbage, maybe I will find something creative to do with it?

[Jeffhs]

Liking antique/vintage electronics as I do (I have several vintage Zenith and Sony radios here; no room for vintage TVs, except perhaps small 5" portables, in my small apartment), I cannot see the sense, either, in why kids like smashing old sets found on treelawns, curbs, etc. on trash collection day. When I lived in suburban Cleveland, I would see a TV every once in a while with the neck broken off the CRT or even the screen bashed in. I even saw kids pitching rocks at the screens of vintage TVs; it's a wonder the tube didn't implode. If one ever did, I'm sure those kids would run like sixty, hoping to avoid being cut severely by flying glass (all CRTs are under tremendous vacuum pressure; when that lets go, look out!). On the other hand, I'm sure some kids were injured badly by flying glass from a broken CRT; I bet that put an end to their rock-throwing (at least at televisions) forever.

[andy]

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[Aussie Bloke]

I have to also say whilst in USA, 70s colour TV sets are not considered as worth collecting due to their abundance, in Australia it would be a different story for us collectors over here as we did not get colour until the fall of 1974 so I'd dare say colour TV sets in Australia dating 1974-76 would be considered as collectible items, around that era we had Philips, National (Panasonic), Kriesler and a few others and we only had VHF tuning, we were late on the scene with technology no thanks to the conservative government. Nowadays in Australia colour TV sets from the mid 70s are of a real rarity and B&W sets from the 50s and 60s are almost unheard of. I was fortunate enough to pick up a 1959 B&W HMV set in my travels and have a techo friend to get it up and running (not perfectly) for me.

[Sandy G]

I've busted up/shot a few TVs in my day, but they were always ones that were too far gone to be any value otherwise. Prolly the most "valuable" one was an early '60s 23" B&W console-it may have actually worked. I took it to the local Dump, & unloaded a couple clips outta the Uzi at it. We left it there, & it just kept getting shot more & more until finally that fall, there was nothing left...

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by andy

Back when I lived in my first apartment, for the first year or so, every junk TV I set out for the trash got smashed. It was annoying because it left shards of glass everywhere. Eventually they either got bored, or got in trouble because the smashings stopped.

I have to second that most 70's and 80's consoles are still junk. They may be good quality, but no one wants them (not even us). That's the definition of junk! Maybe in 10 or 20 years, but even then, I can't see myself ever being interested in 70's or newer consoles (but then, 10 years ago, I couldn't imagine wanting 60's consoles).

For me, it's mostly early, or unusual technology that's collectible. That means any tube color set, 50's or older B/W, and early solid state like the CTC-40, or original Quasar. By the 70's most color TVs were just commodity items that were no longer interesting (and they were UGLY). 70's small color portables are hard to resist because they are cute, but anything over 19" is a no go for me with the exception of unusual, or cutting edge sets. I also have to admit that when things become hard to find they get more interesting.

I predict that in the future, early LCD and plasma sets will be collectible because they were rare when they were new, and working ones will be even more rare. Early CRT HDTV should also have some value (like early color TVs).

Even though I grew up in the 1970s (I'm 52 now) and remember well Zenith and other brands of TVs/stereo/audio gear from that era, I have to agree with you, looking back on it, that they were not what they were 20 years earlier or more. Even my favorite brand of televisions/audio/home entertainment gear (Zenith) was starting to go downhill by the seventies. They still made console color TVs (Chromacolor II, et al.), but the cabinets weren't all solid wood as were the company's earlier sets. These new CCIIs and, later, System 3 consoles were in wood cabinets, all right, but the accent pieces at either end of the cabinet were woodgrain plastic. This was, I honestly believe, the beginning of the end of the Zenith Radio Corporation as we knew it; the quality of the sets just kept getting worse and worse.

To be fair, however, I have to say that not all Zenith TVs from the seventies were bad. One of my great-uncles had a Zenith Chromacolor II console, bought new in the mid-'70s after his 1960s-era Zenith console (with the light-through VHF and UHF tuner knobs, not the projection type as used in '60s Zeniths, but dials in which the light shone directly through the numbers on the knob) went bad. His CCII console lasted quite a while, requiring only one repair that I was ever aware of: when the CRT cracked after he had the set about six months. I had another great-uncle who replaced the worn-out color TV chassis in his old 3-way console with a portable Zenith TV; he actually put the new set in the space formerly occupied by the old chassis, and put a wood frame around the set to take up the extra space around the opening. The set worked absolutely great for years, and I must say, the installation looked so good it was very difficult to tell that this was a custom job. I'm sure the Zenith TV my great-uncle used to replace the old chassis must have been from the mid-'70s; 1974 is my best guess. The picture looked wonderful (typical pre-GS Zenith) on the outdoor antenna he had. I can only guess how this TV would work on today's cable systems or with a VCR or DVD player; it would probably make the same great Zenith picture as it did on broadcast television.

[Captain Video]

"On the same note, I've noticed a lot of us collectors don't see much importance of the more modern TV sets, probably because they come in abundance because of more automated mass production and are practically throwaways if a jungle IC goes faulty as it's cheaper to buy a new set than pay a TV repairman to replace them, well I've come to think the later TV sets are also of technological historical importance in the evolution of TV and will in some decades time be also considered collectors items and they would eventually become scarce like the antique pre-70s sets. The old saying goes one mans trash is another mans treasure."

It's really impossible for me to think of those ugly black-box TV sets of the 1990's as something really worth to collect at ANY time. They are so... unpleasant to look at ( stylistic speaking ).

1980's TVs are another matter; the 80's were the LAST era in which the factories did put some effort in the cabinet-design for TV sets. I saved two color TV sets from the 80's, and that's it. Enough for me.

I can think of only two 1990's ( early 1990's actually ) that I really like to have in my collection: the Philips "helmet" ( there's one in a Police station here in my city!!! I am trying to get courage to ask them if they would sell it!!! ) and a Mitsubish console that you could turn from one side or another ( like the screen of a Predicta ).

I do have, as daily driver, an actually cute mid-1990's 14 inch ( black box ) "Gradiente" TV set ( Brazilian brand ). Luckilly, this TV is a little different than other black-boxes sets. It's not completely square, it does have a slightly rounded front and an almost "art-deco" base. Some people actually thought that the only reason that I have this TV is because it kind have a "retro" look.

This Gradiente TV set I may save from the curb, as a representative ( although better than the average TV sets of that era ) of the commom 1990's TV sets.

[jetblack]

Hey, can you 'early tv' experts help us 'early tv' novices appreciate the early tv's? I'm looking for a list of things to look for in an old tv that are a plus over the newer tv's. I'm not looking for "the console was made well". With the conversion of analog broadcasts to digital, if one were to use a d/a converter, what characteristic of the early tv would result in a superior pic to the new tv's (and exlude HD & history aspects for a moment)?