TV treasures plucked from the trash heap

Remote controls?

Flat screens?

Plasma?

TiVo?

Those weren’t even glimmers in people’s black-and-white-watching eyes when the earliest television sets landed in their living rooms in the late 1940s and 1950s.

Touting their “Phonorama” acoustics and “twice-as-bright” picture tubes, the first TVs really were the best thing since sliced bread, which was popularized by Wonder Bread about a decade earlier.

Alas, about 50 years later these magical picture boxes that once put sparkles in many eyes only raise eyebrows when they’re added to a heap of junk to be recycled.

During a monthlong promotion offering a $10 discount on the cost of recycling a TV, four “Good Guys” electronics stores in the Puget Sound region pulled in 4,042 sets, far exceeding the goal of 2,000.

The Lynnwood store, the only one in Snohomish County that participated, attracted the most TVs with 1,912. Stores in Tukwila, Bellevue and Puyallup also participated in the campaign that ran from July 8 to Aug. 7.

The older ones that are in good enough condition are put aside and sometimes used by TV and movie production companies when they need period props.

Even past their useful years, they maintain their value.

The oldest of the lot was a 1955 Philco Model 4310. It is a “luxurious full door 21-inch console” with a “crotch mahogany pattern” and lockplate hardware in an antique English finish, according to an original sales brochure found on www.tvhistory.tv.

“I think that one would have cost at least $400, which was a lot back then,” Lincoln Torgerson of Miller TV in Everett said, referring to the 1955 Philco. “People saved their money forever to get them.”

That set likely doesn’t work.

“Looking at the cords, I didn’t even want to plug it in,” said Pete Keller, manager of Total Reclaim in Seattle, the company that ultimately collected all the TVs for recycling.

Still, many people can’t help but get nostalgic about setting up their home’s first TV.

“I remember the round screen, having to go up and slap the side of it so it wouldn’t roll anymore,” Keller said. “Our neighbors had color for, like, five years before we got ours. There would be 15, 20 kids over at their house just to watch TV.”

Just about 50 years after they hit the mainstream, people are taken aback when they see the older TV sets, often mistaking them for “antiques.” The term is generally reserved for items that are at least 100 years old.

“TV hasn’t been around that long, so it’s not like you can get an antique TV,” Torgerson said. “It’s not like some of the old radios you can get.”

So, we’ll call them vintage.

And what might the family sitting in front of this vintage Philco have seen the night in 1955 they hit the on switch for the first time?

On a Sunday, they might have watched “The Ed Sullivan Show,” or “Lassie.” Monday would have brought “George Burns and Gracie Allen,” or a continuing favorite, “I Love Lucy.”

Other prime-time favorites that year included “You Bet Your Life,” “The Honeymooners,” and “The Adventures of Ozzie &Harriet.”

Lucille Ball won the Emmy that year for best actress, Phil Silvers was best actor, and “The $64,000 Question” won in the category of Best Audience Participation Series, signaling the beginnings of what one might call a “reality TV” craze.

Over the years, TV manufacturers have added remote controls, color, big-screens and now high-definition, but it’s still all about receiving a signal and turning it into an image on the screen, Torgerson said.

“The operation of them hasn’t changed,” he said. “There’s only one way to make them.”

Reporter Victor Balta: 425-339-3455 or vbalta@ heraldnet.com.

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