Vintage Electronic Junque:
"Toys That Make Noise"
Some TVs in my collection
Radios
Microphones
Audio Recorders
Miscellaneous Junque
Computers
Club Activities
Yes, I'm a TV collector. Here's my Christmas card!
Televisions
I currently have somewhere around 200 early television sets in my collection.
(As a wiser man than me once said "If you know exactly how many televisions
you have in your collection, then you obviously just don't have enough!)
A few of my sets are on display in my home, a number are currently
being displayed in the New Jersey Antique Radio Club's
Radio Technology Museum at InfoAge but, sadly,
most are squirreled away in storage right now.
Here are a few of them:
Some smaller TVs on display in my office
TVs in
the office
GE "Locomotive" 10-inch screen
Philco Predicta 21"
Fada "630" 10"
Hoffman 12"
GE 810 10"
Admiral small bakelite console - 10" screen
Crosley "630" - 10" screen
Rare prewar Andrea 2-F-12 (I found it in a barn!)
The same set now on display in Early Television Museum
Steve McVoy of Early Television Museum and Dave
with the Andrea 2-F-12 in the museum
Sony 8-301 (Sony's first solid-state portable TV)
Sony 5-303. My first TV!
Long gone, I found this replacement on eBay.
Another of my Sony 5-303s currently on display in our InfoAge museum
Blonder-Tongue "99" UHF Converter
My B-T converter, autographed by both Ben and Ike
Philco's first postwar set: model 1000
Sony "CV" series black-and-white camera
Some of my 1/2" EIAJ and pre-EIAJ open reel video junque
My 1947 Pilot TV with 3" screen
My 1946 RCA 621 7" set
My new Tele-Tone 7" set on its way home from the Early Television Convention
The oldest set currently in my collection: a 1941 RCA TRK-12 mirror-in-lid set
TRK with lid open
My living room. No flat panel TVs here!
We do receive DTV signals at home, but only on a 7" 1948 set!
Radios
Aaack! Could it be that I have hardly any photographs handy
of my over 200 radios? Here are a few. Check back for more.
RCA "tombstone" mantle radio
A nice grandfather clock radio of unknown manufacture
Microphones
I have a small collection of vintage microphones.
I use my RCA 77DX, which I acquired from the original owner.
It's in mint cosmetic condition and works like the day it was new!
The mike came with the original owner's manual and the cloth storage bag!
Audio Recorders
I have a modest collection of tape, wire and disc recorders.
Here are just a few of them:
Brush BK-401 tape (as in paper tape) recorder
I still use several my reel-to-reel recorders professionally on occasion.
It can be tough getting an old tape through the machine!
One of several wire recorders in my collection
You can listen to it here!
One of my two Ampex 350 studio decks
Another Ampex studio deck, Model 400
An oddball "pre-Norelco cassette" tape cartridge.
(I should have put a penny in the picture for size. This thing is about six inches wide!)
Some old tape boxes
And "the man who started it all" scribbles on my guitar!
Miscellaneous Stuff
A small and growing mountain of paper makes up part of my collection
Volume 1 Issue 1 "All About Television" (1927)
I have a bunch of "garden variety" test equipment and some collectible pieces
One of the more eclectic artifacts in my TV collection.
Yes, it's just a laboratory power supply, but it didn't come from just any lab...
...it has a pretty unique provenance!
Several pinball machines, a jukebox, a pachinko machine
and other arcade devices are included in the madness:
AMI Model "C" Jukebox (1950)
Slick Chick. (1963)
Possibly the best-playing pinball game ever made!
Knock Out - a wood railed pinball game circa 1940s.
Baffle Ball home pinball game (1931)
No home should be without a gumball machine. Or two. Or three.
Me and my mom, circa 1955
and the TV on which I grew up watching Modern Farmer and the Indian Head test pattern
If you know where I can get one of these, please let me know!
Collectible Computers
Oops! No pictures handy of the computer stuff.
The collection includes an Osborne "luggable",
a Timex 1000, an Apple II and a few other pieces
of "retro" computer paraphenalia.
Club Activities
The New Jersey Antique Radio Club: www.njarc.org
InfoAge Science Center: www.infoage.org
The Early Television Foundation and Museum: www.earlytelevision.org
David Sarnoff Library Museum: www.davidsarnoff.org
Antique Wireless Association: www.antiquewireless.org
Mid-Atlantic Retro Computer Hobbyists: http://www.midatlanticretro.org/
Dave receiving the Antique Wireless Association's
2008 Award for Preservation of Television History
for his work in recording and webcasting
early television preservation activities.
In front of our TIROS satellite antenna
at InfoAge's Project Diana moonbounce site
"Captain Video" speaks to the crowd during
The Great Cub Scout Invasion of 2008
at the InfoAge Radio Technology Museum
One of my RCA 630TS's is in our Radio Technology museum
The 630 was the first mass produced television and is credited with helping
to launch the golden age of television in postwar United States.
One of my RCA 721's and some of my other sets on display in the musem
Charles Osgood tours the Radio Technology museum
The New Jersey Antique Radio Club hosts swapmeets twice a year in Parsippany.
At NJARC meetings you can see things like the first 45!
An NJARC display featuring some of my sets.
This one was at the Trenton Computer Show.
Another view of an NJARC display
An NJARC display featuring some of my sets
An NJARC display featuring some of my sets
At the David Sarnoff Library Museum
Stay tuned. There's more to come.