Hello All,

This is the 1st TV Mom & Dad had in their first house that they bought in 1958. Always thought it was a Motorola, but can't find it on-line or read the model name in picture. Does anyone here know ???

Remember well it had problems in the early '60's even though I was very young. Once the Selenium rectifier went out and remember the repairman pulling the chassis to take it to shop---and that wasn't the only time he worked on it... It was replaced by a 16" Zenith portable in 1967 which then became a spare set a couple years later when we were able to get a color TV...

Thanks !
John

I'm pretty certain it's a 1959 model, but the make is a guess. The name-plate is not recognizable to me.

Maybe someone else will recognize it ???

Have never seen another either in person or on-line. Called Dad who is almost 90 and he didn't remember either though he thought they might have bought it at Greggs in Kokomo, IN back then...

John

My first thought was maybe a Hoffman? Or maybe an Airline MW?

Airline is a good guess looking at the nameplate. Too bad it's not easy to see models from this era. If I had to take a best guess, it would be a 1959 Airline sold by Montgomery Ward.

Thanks Guys...

Did search Airline as well as all U.S. brands I could find using Google image---only one that looked somewhat close was a late '50's Trav-Ler. Surprised that there aren't more sites with '50's TV items. Here is another snip out of an old slide scan showing control panel at different angle---even though blurry, badge looks completely different in this view !

John

Now I'm doubtful of it being an Airline. It's likely not one of the more popular brands, and the nameplate could be a model name rather than a manufacturer's.
You could also scan the 1959 Radio and TV Retailing magazines here:
https://worldradiohistory.com/Radio_Ret ... gazine.htm
You might get lucky. There's tons of sets in these radio/tv dealer magazines although not every brand is covered.
You can also look over these manufacturer's and see if you can recognize a name that fits:
http://earlytelevision.org/postwar_manufacturers.html

Only a few sets would have had that specific knob layout, the real issue is finding enough old advertising photos which are clear enough to determine which brands used it in the late 50's.

I could name 20 brands that it's definitely not. That still leaves too many possibilities.

Thanks Guys.

Spent another long period of time searching through on-line resources with no luck.

Also "doctored" the TV image in Photoshop & Paint to remove all background to attempt Google image search.

Need to find some on-line catalogs for '58 & '59 if possible, anyone know of any specific ones I could search for ???

Had no idea this was going to be so difficult !

John

Wow, can't believe how difficult this has become. Have shared pics with several others who have TV connections with no luck. Asked Dad again about it and he said they did buy it new in '58, but might be a '59 model---and he thought it was a Motorola though I did find '58 & '59 Motorola brochures on-line and nothing matched...

Enlarged and greatly brightened the fuzzy script and the first letter appears to be a stylized "F" similar to that used for the Canadian Fleetwood, but it only is engraved onto edge of small polished brash rectangle with the rest of the letters following. May just be the model name as mentioned earlier by Joe.

Thanks for continuing ideas...

John

I so wish I could locate it for you, but that era is so tough. I've been a TV collector for 30+ plus years and am feeling pretty sure the nameplate is model name rather than manufacturer. They used names like "Suburbanite" at that time.
Did you try the Videokarma site? ARF is much more focused on radio, but VK is much more focused on TV. Some serious collectors on there:
http://www.videokarma.org/
Also you might try to contact Steve McCoy on the Early Television Foundation site. He's the owner of the museum and one of the top TV historians around:
https://www.earlytelevision.org/

Thanks much, Joe---will do !

I've visited the VK site for a few radio articles that showed up on on-line search, but have never joined...

Will post what I find !

John

I so want to believe it's a Trav-ler, but I'll be darned if that nameplate spells that out. The only name I see connected with their sets is "Deluxe", but I feel fairly certain they would've put the company name on the front, or "Trav-ler" on the lower mask and a model name on the grill. To leave it off entirely is uncommon.

Thanks Guys.

Jim---was that you who posted on VK ?

Joe---no names anywhere else on front and notice that the mask is darker than most which from what I've seen is unusual.

Will send an e-mail to Steve and hope that he'll respond...

John

One of the better sources for photos is old Sams Photofact folders, which show a representative model on each individual folder. That becomes very tedious, but there are literally thousands of TV photofacts to look at on eBay. If you could find a way to limit them by year, it would be easier.

No, dieseljeep is Dave Nash from Cedar Grove, Wisconsin. I know him from our Wisconsin Antique Radio Club (warci.org). He has a long history of repairing old TVs. I use the same alias (wiscojim) over on VK that I use here.

.

Jim---looked at all I could find on-line concerning Trav-Ler again with no luck. Maybe he'll remember more later...

Dennis---have been doing that very thing on-line for all U.S manufacturers using Google Images, Ebay (and other market sites), Radiomuseum, TV collector sites, etc... Many hours so far.

Did send message to Steve McCoy and hope to hear from him soon...

Here is the highly magnified and brightened script from control panel. Notice the rectangular brightwork with stylized first letter. Does this look at all familiar to anyone ???

John

It looks a lot like Magnavox, minus the tail on the lower case "g" and the dark colored mask also looks like something they could have used. Magnavox was always very selective about which dealers could sell their products though.

However, a search of table model and consolette 1959 Magnavox models shows the controls were at the lower right rather than the top right. Many Magnavox sets around that time had the controls on the top of the cabinet and not on the front at all. They also usually had the Magnavox name at the lower center of the mask.

http://www.hifi-archiv.info/Radio-Werbu ... %201-2.jpg

So based upon the differences, I think it's probably not a 1959 Magnavox.

Looks like you already saw the post on VK, but just in case here is what DJ had to say:
Quote:
Originally Posted by madlabs View Post
Do you mean this one:

vie...p?f=3&t=395183

If so, what makes you say it is a Traveler, what year, model, any other information?
Around a 1956 or 57 model. It had a low B+chassis, one selenium rectifier.
The one I worked on had UHF. Hard to remember from 1964 or so.