Found a Sylvania 177M television from 1953

[AllPurposeAtheist]

All intact walnut cabinet..Don't know if it works yet, but it's in the garage now..

It looks like the one top center.. Walnut cabinet so even if I canabalize it the wood is worth quite a bit.
Anyone know anything about fixing old tv's? Obviously it would need to be retrofitted to even get a picture..
I might see if there's a market for this old thing..
Found it just sitting on the side of the road..

[Mike Cl]

All intact walnut cabinet..Don't know if it works yet, but it's in the garage now..

It looks like the one top center.. Walnut cabinet so even if I canabalize it the wood is worth quite a bit.
Anyone know anything about fixing old tv's? Obviously it would need to be retrofitted to even get a picture..
I might see if there's a market for this old thing..
Found it just sitting on the side of the road..

That was the first year (1953) my family got a TV.  If I remember right all TV's came in a cabinet then, just not all of them had doors.  Ours was a RCA.  At the time we could get only one channel.  And it was on from 8am to 10 pm--then we had that famous test screen and that huge hummmm.  I remember Sgt. Preston and Yukon King; The Lone Ranger; and the Cisco Kid.  I liked them as much on TV as I did on the Radio.  I don't remember the screen size, but from my memories eye, it was quite big; I'm sure it was not.  But having a TV was quite the deal then!

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Strange how we can remember things specific to a TV.. I remember our first color tv and the show we watched the first time.. it was the premier of the Brady Bunch in living color.. That same night there was a big fight in front of our house when some guys from another part of the neighborhood picked a fight with the kid across the street.  My dad got involved and got smacked in the head with a cue stick while the kid's dad hid himself in his backyard..
I don't remember the brand of tv, but do remember the event.  I was about 8 and was ready to go fight with my dad, but mom dragged me back inside.. Probably a good idea on my mom's part..

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I remember our first TV and the first program on it. My older brother was off to first grade when the landlord brought his old TV to us. (Family was sharecropping in southern Missouri then, 1955.) The first show I saw as a travelogue, probably Hawaii. I swear that my thought was "how do they get those tiny people in that box?" 

That was sixty-one years ago, so I guess it made an impression. But Captain Kangaroo was much more important to me.

[Atheon]

You could cannibalize the cabinet and fit it with a modern flat-screen TV... modern tech with a classic look.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

You could cannibalize the cabinet and fit it with a modern flat-screen TV... modern tech with a classic look.

I thought about that,but the newer tvs are more rectangular  whereas the one in it is almost a perfect square.. . I tried registering for various antique TV forums and it must be some super secret society. They act like any outsider is only going to spam them.. I'm not big on destroying relics of the past, but on the other hand I have no sentimental attachment to this thing and the walnut panels are likely worth more just for the lumber value.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Well,  it ain't gonna work because the picture tube is broken and probably the other tubes are likely all toast, but here it is anyway..
For its day this was the DELUXE model..


If you could afford this in 1953 you were probably shitting in high cotton..

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I thought about that,but the newer tvs are more rectangular  whereas the one in it is almost a perfect square.. . I tried registering for various antique TV forums and it must be some super secret society. They act like any outsider is only going to spam them.. I'm not big on destroying relics of the past, but on the other hand I have no sentimental attachment to this thing and the walnut panels are likely worth more just for the lumber value.

Just have to add a panel below the flat tv.   Doesn't have to match perfectly.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Just have to add a panel below the flat tv.   Doesn't have to match perfectly.

yeah I know.. Part of the problem is the only tv we have that will fit is the one nobody ever watches. It sits upstairs collecting dust 99.99% of the time..  I'm thinking about just gutting it and adding drawers in it to be a bit more useful.. Maybe I should become an alcoholic again and fill it with liquor..

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Location, location, location.

[Baruch]

Make a fake TV tube front, just like it looks now, but it opens up to shelves or whatever.  Quite a conversation piece.  Especially if you wind people up and tell them you are going to watch a Howdy Doody episode from 1956 that was bounced off Pluto ;-)

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Anyone want to buy a really cool picture frame?

[Brian37]

Wow,  antique, like the GOP and Trump's xenophobia. Meh, that TV has way more value.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

It wasn't that valuable,  about $100 tops, but yes, much more valuable than the gop.. I found that the TVs of real value are pre WWII models.. Yes,  there were TVs sold before WWII, as far back as the 1920s.. Tough to imagine anyone actually buying one back when there might have been one tv station in an entire state,if that, but people did and those old sets are worth some money. By the time the 50's rolled around they were mass produced in the millions.
I took it apart and even the wood screws were better quality than most made today or at least the heads were cut deeper. I used my cheapo harbor freight Phillips head screwdriver and didn't strip one.. You never know what goodies you might find when canabalizing old junk..

[GreatLife]

Please be careful taking that thing apart.

The old TVs with big tubes were not properly grounded.  Some of those tubes are capacitors - which can store a lot of power even after the TV is unplugged.