Does anyone know how many volumes were published? I just got Volumes 1-17 this weekend. (Don't tell my wife! )

27.

You lucky dog:-) Like to find a set too.

How are you going to hide such large books?

I can't even find a bookshelf tall enough to house my vols 4-8.

Carl

That is a big problem. Currently they are stacked on the floor, along with too many other radio's and parts. I was very hesitant about buying them since they are so big, and I don't really have interest in TV, just early (mostly battery sets and early 30's) radio, parts and documentation. BUT the price was way to encouraging.

Riders radio: Volumes 1-23

Riders TV: Volumes 1-23

Riders combined radio & TVs: Volumes 24-27

Many of the radio guys still think the set ended at 23, ignorant of the fact that there were 4 more years of radio production covered in the combined volumes.


.

Thats interesting information. Watch year vintage of Radios and TVs did the last volumes cover?

Carl

My cumulative index ends with Volume 25 and was printed in 1959. I'll guess volumes 26 and 27 cover 1960 & 1961 or thereabouts.


.

Sadly I was one of those folks untill I read that post.

That is a something I'll definitely remember.

It is disapointing that the CD ROMS of what was called the complete Riders radio books don't cover the last few years. Someone needs to gather all the Riders service literature and make a truely complete set of discs to sell to the collecting comunity.

Of course at least one of the older radio manuals has some pre-war TV in it so I guess you could say that combining the manuals above volumes 23 was not a new idea at the time.

Tom C.

Here is a list of the Rider's service manuals through 1960. The CD and DVD sets are complete, if you go by the original classification Rider's put them in.

Notice the asterisks below the TV manuals to show when they started being combination volumes with radios.

I concur – 27 manuals

I had the entire set and gave all but the first 5 to a University Library.

I still have 1 through 5.

The #1 TV is small format with 8X10 sized pages, same size as the Radio manuals. The rest are the largre format.

The last few (four I think), covered transistor radios and some combo stuff.

The problem is the entire set eats up a small room and they are heavy. I moved from SLC UT to Phoenix AZ and had to shed some load.

Personally I like to have the service information on paper so I can see the entire schematic at one time. The Volume 1 actually has large fold out schematics.

Often I will put the schematic through the replicator and have a dirt copy I can burn holes in and spill coffee on.

Jim

I've been wanting a full set of the TV Riders also. What is the going price for volumes 1-27?

That's a "when and where" question. They never seem to be where the buyers are, and shipping is often far more than the selling price of the sets. Most volumes are in the 12 by 15-inch format (except volumes 1 & 2). I've seen several times where they can't even get an opening bid at radio meets and on eBay. I paid $50 for my full set 15+ years ago (at an Illinois radio meet).

Even though these are often cheap, it is very rare for a complete set to appear. Most often you see only a few volumes.


.

So, Jim, if I were to find a complete set of 1-27, would it be safe to say that $50.00 and maybe to up to $75.00 would be fair to both the buyer and seller?

$50-75? Honestly it would be a fantastic deal for the buyer. I've seen some individual volumes go for more than that on eBay.

Full sets of these rarely appear anywhere (eBay, club meets, classifieds, etc.) therefore it is like many other collectible radio & TV items. There is no easy way to set a price on them, other than by watching their sales over a long time and over a wide area. Because they rarely appear, and supply/demand and location of these heavy sets makes transportation a problem, there can really be no easy answer to your question. If you wanted to buy a set this week, you may not be able to find one at any price. Then later on you may hear of a set appearing at an auction in a remote place like Oshkosh, Nebraska that sold for only $10 because no radio/TV collector knew they were there and one guy bought them for reasons other than servicing TVs.

The material in these sets is very valuable, and often can't be found anywhere else. Trying to piece together a set on eBay would take you several years and easily cost well over $500. Some volumes seem to appear on ebay only once every few years. Only once have I ever seen a complete set of these offered together on ebay.

Not to say that some more full sets won't appear under $100 in the future at a remote location far from where a wanting buyer is, but I would say a fair price to both buyer and seller right now would be much closer to $500 than $50.

If you're looking for a complete set on the cheap, you'll have to look at estate sales and radio swap meets. But that could take years of searching and a lot of expense, and you still may never find them. Or you may get lucky by placing a classified ad here and on other radio/TV forums and hope to find someone with a set that they have no need of anymore.

Good luck.

.

So, if I were to find a complete set close to home, say within a hundred miles or so, and in decent condition with minimal mold or mildew problems, you feel $400.00 to $500.00 is a fair price to both the seller and the buyer.

Anyone else with an opinion on this want to chime in? I would like to be fair about this if and when I might find a set.

I would consider that reasonable.

Yes, I would consider it reasonable too. It's less than $20 / volume and they are packed with awesome info. I've worked on several late 40 / early 50 sets where only Riders had accurate info about all the production revisions. Also the big fold out schematics are very nice

Were the Riders more, or less common than SAMS with the older servicing shops? I'm guessing most of these got tossed; otherwise there would be way more supply than demand. The vintage TV collecting community still appears to be a very small group. I personally don't see vintage TV ever becoming as popular as radio, because of the shortage of watchable CRT's. Apparently CRT's were never stock piled or hung on to, as were the smaller receiving tubes.

Hi Kevin. A few thoughts on the question and observations you brought up...

I think you see far less Rider sets out there is because they were never big sellers compared to the Photofacts.

The older independent radio servicing shops that got into TV may have started with the original manufacturer's service literature as most communities only had one or two TV retailers early on, so they would likely only have to service one or two brands of product. As more brands would come into the shops, some probably used Rider TV books because they were already familiar with the Rider radio manuals. Many shops only relied on technicians that knew electronics and could service equipment without the need of individual manuals for each set. Back then radios were all pretty much similar in theory and operation, so their circuits were also very similar. (Just ask Ken Gooding on this forum, he is the one always pointing out that you don't need a schematic to service most electronics, if you understand how they work). When TVs came out they were of course more complex, and the Sam's folders came out at about this same time and had all the information needed in each folder to service any particular set, without necessarily needing to know any theory of operation.

Perhaps the large number of new service shops opening shortly after WWII due to home study courses and GI training programs bringing new people into the field helped Sam's sell lots of inexpensive photofacts to people that were not familiar with the Rider books, giving Sam's a market advantage.

The Photofacts biggest advantages over the Rider books were probably their standardized all-inclusive format, and the ability to purchase individual folders on an "as-needed" basis for whatever set they needed at the time from their local jobber, the same way I started buying them in the 1970's. When TV first started becoming popular, the service shops already had a lot of new expenses, stocking TV parts and purchasing the equipment needed to service them. Buying an inexpensive Photofact now and then as needed could help keep them on budget.

On the lack of CRT inventories surviving, I don't find it surprising at all that older CRTs were not stockpiled. Local TV shops always stocked frequently needed inventory like most basic tubes, but probably stocked only a few of the most commonly needed CRTs at any given time. CRTs required more space to store and were more expensive to hold in inventory. I'm sure that most got their CRTs from their local jobber or regional distributor either as needed, or only keeping a few week's or month's advance needs on hand. Therefore the demise of the CRT inventories was likely when the distributors finally wrote them off as being obsolete due to lack of demand, and either wholesaled them out or trashed them.

Now I'm thinking about another mystery. What did Sam's do with all the TVs, radios, and other electronics that they dissected in order to photograph and analyze to create the Photofacts? They had to actually obtain the sets they covered, they didn't just rely on info from the manufacturers as Riders was well-known for. I would imagine that they put the sets back in working order, but then where did they go? Did they have an outlet for selling them, or did they save them somewhere for a period of time in case they needed to go back and make some corrections in the folders? I also wonder if they did them all in Indianapolis, or perhaps they had several regional labs to do this in. To create the Photofact series, Sam's surely had to purchase a lot of electronics!

Is anyone interested in researching and documenting the history of Sam's? Now would be the time, while they are still in business. With the lack of serviceability of modern electronics, I don't see them continuing far into the future.



.