Saw a CT-100 for the first time

[Bill R]

I turned one down in Memphis for $75. It was mid 70's, and I was selling used sets. I didn't think I would ever be able to sell a console with such a small picture. This set had chroma, but no video. The CRT looked good though. Sure wish I had bought it. I would still have it. Kicking myself.

[Sandy G]

Just theu the Missionary Ridge Tunnels on US 11-64 in Chattanooga, there was a semi-funky area of town called "Brainerd". When I was there as a student at McCallie School, there was a used TV/radio sales/repair shop there, & in 1974/75 when I was a senior there, the guy had a PRISTINE looking funky old TV in the window, "!957 CT-100 Color, $200". From what I remember it looking like, it COULD have been a CT-100, & he was just off on his date. But $200 was a king's ransom for a broke boarding-school student in '75, much less where would I have PUT it, & how could I have GOTTEN it anywhere... I didn't make it back to Chattanooga after I graduated in May '75 for something like 3 years, & by then, the TV shop was long gone. Sigh...

[jr_tech]

Thinking wayyy back, one of the most amazing CT-100 events that I can recall, was a "clearance sale" of the sets. This was around 1962 or so, when an ad appeared in a local Sunday newspaper offering "Color TVs" for something in the neighborhood of $100 (perhaps $150). There was also a little note at the bottom of the page stating that replacement picture tubes were no longer available for these sets. I convinced my parents that we should go to the sale and perhaps buy something cheap that *might* last until rectangular screen sets became available (which is what they were waiting for). Mom grabbed the checkbook, and we drove to the sale in the pick-up truck (both promising signs).
The sale was located in a store front in an older small shopping center in the suburbs. The windows were covered with tarps, with a big homemade looking sign "Color TV Sale". It was almost pitch black inside, save for the dim glow of about 5-10 CT-100s sort of operating inside. Several others sat along the walls that were not in operation. A few of the sets looked fairly good and I pleaded that we should take one home, but my parents were VERY unimpressed. Most people just walked out, shaking their heads. We went home empty handed.
The next weekend the same ad appeared with the price reduced to $75. I pleaded again, but my parents did not want one of those "ugly purple tinted sets" at any price, and waited a few years to buy a 23" Sylvania. I suspect that many were scrapped after that second weekend sale.

jr

[Charlie]

Ya know, it is possible that you just might be able to find one of those ads on the web. There are those sites dedicated to old newspaper archives... I've come across some pretty neat items in old papers I've found on the internet. Sure, you have to pay a little bit for it, but if you know the name of the paper and approximate dates, you just might come across what you're speaking of.

A while back, i came across a local early-60's ad that had one of my RCA roundies in there for about 630 bucks.

[Phil Nelson]

Originally Posted by jr_tech

ad in a local Sunday newspaper

Do you know the name of the paper?

Phil Nelson

[jr_tech]

Originally Posted by Phil Nelson

Do you know the name of the paper?

Fairly sure it was the Oregon Journal.

jr

[Phil Nelson]

Originally Posted by jr_tech

Fairly sure it was the Oregon Journal.

If you ever get inspired to look for that ad, the University of Oregon has microfilmed archives of the Oregon Journal from 1902-1982:

http://library.uoregon.edu/govdocs/micro/papers.htm

Phil Nelson

[ChrisW6ATV]

My "if only I had known" story is the four or five GE 4TM-15 color 15-inch monitors that were for sale at the electronic surplus store where I worked in 1979-80. Three or four were new in their crates, one other was on the sale floor parked in a corner (it had a full cabinet with casters) priced at $75. When the store was about to go out of business in early 1980, all of them were sold to two or three men who just took the CRTs and left the rest for scrap.

[compu_85]

The thing is, if people had kept them when there were more of them around that would decrease the value of the remaining ones; though I guess they sold so few to begin with the difference might not be much.

-J

[dtvmcdonald]

I find it interesting that people first saw a CT-100 in say 1960 or 1970. I saw
my first ones in, naturally, 1954. First one was at station WBAP ... at the very first.
By that I mean I was actually there in the station when they turned on color. I was
a 9 year old kid, interested in electronics, and mightily impressed. (I was there
because I was friends with the weatherman's son.) (I also saw the color monitors
they had).

Later my uncle had a loaner one while his B&W monster was being repaired.
He was impressed and soon bought a 21AXP22 set. In Ft. Worth we always
had plenty of color shows since WBAP did all local stuff in color.

Doug McDonald

[Steve D.]

Doug,

As I mentioned in my above post, I purchased my 1st CT-100 in the mid 60's at a used TV store. But, like you, I viewed my first color TV program in 1954. It was at a TV dealer's store. I don't recall if the set was a CT-100. I had no knowledge of the various makes as a 9 year old kid. I do remember how small the screen was compared to the 21" B&W sets next to it. The show I watched was the 1st west coast to east coast live color broadcast on CBS from their Hollywood TV City studios. "Life With Father" was the program. Seeing this had an enormous impact on me and spurred my life long interest in color tv.

-Steve D.

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by dtvmcdonald

Later my uncle had a loaner one while his B&W monster was being repaired.
He was impressed and soon bought a 21AXP22 set.

Doug McDonald

Your uncle obviously dealt with a first-class place that smartly loaned color sets to their B&W repair customers. Entrepeneurship at its best!

[Sandy G]

You HAD to be a special sort of person to want to keep a CT-100 going by the early-mid '60s...Who in their right mind would want a cumbersome SMALL screen color set that likely was gonna be "Finicky" at best, & a REAL "Problem Child" at worse ?!? RCA prolly would have LOVED to have bought up all the "Service contracts" for those dreadful sets, & been DONE w/them...Given bright, shiny, NEW 23" Rectangular color sets for the old '54 warhorses..

[Tom S]

I envey you guys that got to see the first in color. My first show I seen was Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color on a 21" 1963 Curtis Mathis TV. The chassis was a CMC21. Wasn't the most dependable but still was great to see color Tv.