New find... 1950's Philco Console

[Charlie]

Been up at my camp for the past several days. New central air is being installed tomorrow. While being up here, I learned of a guy nearby in this neck of the woods with an old console tv. At first, I didn't give it too much thought. Went to go have a look, and found it to be a typical looking b&w 21" 1950's Philco. On the front, it's listed as a "Diamond D" which is something I've never really heard of before. Model number is UE4605T. Sams website says it's in 374-9.

After pulling the back off, I found a decent looking chassis with a little dust... not too bad. One pleasant surprise was finding that the CRT had been replaced and the warranty card was still in there from October 30, 1965. That's a big plus. Although I couldn't check it, I'm going on the notion that it's still good. The tube diagram inside lists the original tube as a 21BSP4. The new RCA tube installed is a 21AMP4. The current tube is aluminized. I'm guessing that the original tube was not.

Also, I found this set has motorized power tuning, and apparently had a wired remote. Unfortunately, the remote was no where around. There are two buttons on the top of the set... one for on/off, and the other is for power tuning. So, if it turns out tuner motor still works, I can use the button to change channels.

Looks like it's been serviced quite often. In addition to the crt, most of the tubes have been changed with various brands. I was only able to find two Philco tubes in the set that looked like originals. They had 1956 date codes on them. Also looks like a few caps on the boards have been changed.

The guy was asking 50 bucks for it, and while I normally wouldn't give that much for a typical b&w console, I decided it might be worth it considering the CRT had been replaced and it had power tuning. The guy even loaded it in his truck and brought it to the cabin for me. He was glad to get it out of his way without having to throw it away.

He told me the set was at his grandparent's lake house and he was under the assumption that either they found it at a garage sale or it was given to them... he thinks during the 70's. I showed him the warranty card for the toob. It had a local Beaumont address, but did not recognize the name. He's not even sure if they ever used the set.

Overall, the set looks pretty good. The cabinet is the fake wood stuff and needs a good cleaning. There are some light scratches on the top, but nothing too serious. The knobs and trim are not as shiny as they once were, but the set is quite presentable as is.

Since I am at camp, I don't have any instruments to test anything with. Although the chassis looks pretty decent, I'm not going to try powering it up till I get my variac from home. I might consider pulling the 5U4 out to kill B+ and try turning it on to see if the power tuning will function.