The early morning Florida sun is brutal on my old eyes. As I
walked up the driveway to my first garage sale stop I had to shade my eyes to
see anything at all. When I finally got close enough to the house for shade, my
eyes adjusted and there, a foot in front of me, perched on an old filing
cabinet, was a Philco Predicta TV.
“How much for the old TV” I asked.
“$40”
“Does it work?”
“Not sure”, they said. “Let’s plug it in.”
They carried it inside, powered it up and after about
thirty seconds the tubes warmed up and a thin white line appeared on the screen.
I gave them my best grimace. “Going to need some work”, I
said with a practiced tone of disappointment. I pointed out a missing knob,
some problems with the grill cloth, some rust on the cabinet, scuffs on the
plastic tube housing and offered $20.00. The man looked over to his other
siblings, they nodded. It was mine.
Since the $20 was my entire garage sale budget for the
day I took it home and immediately got on my computer to do some research. I usually
start with eBay to see if they are selling and also to gather information from
the descriptions in the ads. I learned that I had a 1958 Philco Predicta Debutant
with a swiveling 17” picture tube. This particular model was the low end of the
line and was generally sold for use in motels….but they were selling, even not
working, for several hundred dollars. The difficulty of selling something like
this on eBay is shipping. I found most of the ads were offering “local pickup
only”….which really narrows the market. I found one on my local Craigslist (a
higher end “Holiday” model) for $350.00.
I continued my research on google and discovered these are
very popular with restoration guys who enjoy replacing the old paper resistors
and leaky capacitors. There were several forums dedicated to Predicta TVs. I
also learned that these “futuristic” looking TVs were only made for 2 years.
From advertising material I discovered they were called “Predictas” because
they were a “prediction” of what TVs would all look like in 1965…the future.
My first thought was to clean it up and sell it “as is”.
I opened it up, pulled out the electronics, removed the picture tube assembly,
sanded the rust dimples from the cabinet and painted it. I also took off the
plastic picture tube housing and buffed it with a plastic cleaner. It was
looking great!
Now, I started
thinking it might be interesting to find out what it would cost to get it
working again….and if it worked, maybe I would keep it and display it.
I found a couple of places on-line that would refurbish
the electronics for $350.00 dollars. Both required shipping it across the
country. My wife, I reasoned, would never let me spend that much. In an Orlando
search I found a guy locally who worked
on old tube radios. I sent him an email and he said he had worked on lots of
these and he’d be happy to look at it. He also described the thin white line
on the picture tube as “vertical collapse” which could be a simple fix.
I dropped the TV off yesterday. The shop (Radio Relics)
was in an industrial park. It measured about 20 feet wide and 75 feet deep with
a roll up door on the front. The shop itself was completely packed with dusty antique
radio equipment and there was only a narrow passageway to get in. The only
surface area available to set my TV was on top of a 1930s radio cabinet near
the door. I was concerned about scratching the cabinet top but Dennis, the owner, didn’t seem
concerned and insisted that was the best place to put it. At first I thought Dennis was a little "strange" because he never initiated any of our conversation. I would talk and
he would cryptically respond with phrases that sounded more like he was having
a conversation with himself or with the TV than talking to me. If I said
nothing, he said nothing. I spent about 20 minutes there starting conversations
that led nowhere. He was the master of the awkward pause. I left feeling like
he could, indeed, fix the TV but he would never commit to or estimate the cost
of the repair. When I got home I found this: https://growingbolder.com/media/living/hobbies-collections/tubes-transformers-and-tragedy-269340.html
. The video was done 5 years ago and his storefront shop is gone, the cat is
different and there is much more clutter in his shop, but after watching the
video, I have a lot more confidence that the repair price will be fair and my
TV will get loving care. He is supposed to get back to me this week with the
news, good or bad. I’ll keep you posted.
