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Old TV

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NutmegCT

NutmegCT

Great Pumpkin
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OK old tech fans -

mystery photo.jpg


- what is the wooden box with the top halfway up?

- what building is it in?

- who owned it, and more importantly, who presented it as a gift?

Whoever answers all three questions right, gets a Laurel and Hardy handshake!
 
It's a TV. The picture tube was set vertically in the cabinet and a mirror on the top showed the TV tube's reflection, angle set by adjusting the top. Pop almost bought one, but bought a conventional type instead, it had a 6" screen!
 
Paul - right you are. It's a 1939 RCA model TRK-12.

Any idea where it's now located (shown in the picture)?

And who owned it?
 
Have no clue where it's at or who owned it, Tom.
 
Thanks Paul. Let's see if anyone else knows, and will get the "Laurel and Hardy" treatment.
 
Looks like a royal palace to me (that chair... I think I've seen HRH Elizabeth II sitting in it).

Given to King George VI by FDR??
 
Given to King George VI by FDR??

Gettin' close!
 
Given to a young Elizabeth by VP John Garner??

Yes, I'm grasping at straws here... The timing wouldn't be right for Wallis Simpson to have brought it? Or is that her home with Edward Windsor (VIII)?
 
Aha! putting you in the right neck o' the woods ... the location is in the USA!
 
LOL - how 'bout searching "television" and "1939 World's Fair".
 
Is that the "Radio Living Room of Today" from the fair? I haven't been able to track down a photo of it (yet) but the description on BairdTelevision.com seems to fit.
 
You got it! Altho' the one in my first post isn't *the* TV in the 1939 Living Room of Tomorrow exhibit, it's the same model. RCA also provide "see through" clear plastic sets, so people could see it was electronic inside - and not just a movie projector.

President Roosevelt gave a short speech at the opening of the Fair - and the speech was broadcast on NBC (RCA) television, to the few hundred people in the NYC area who actually had a television. After the speech, David Sarnoff, head of RCA (which owned NBC) presented the TV to President Roosevelt. It was delivered to his mother's house at Hyde Park NY. When she died in 1941, FDR inherited the property. The TV is still located in the same room ("The Snuggery") where it was originally placed in 1939.

Part of FDR's opening speech at the Fair:


(kinescopes hadn't been invented yet)

Note FDR's smile when he emphasizes "The New York World's Fair".

Tom M.
 
Last edited:
JHaydon said:
What ever happened to world's fairs? Has there been one this century? Last one I heard about was in the 60s I think.
Click to expand...

There was one in the 1970's in San Antonio - a couple of the buildings are still there including the Hemisfair Needle with the rotating resturaunt at the top.
 
I'll bet you're talking about the 1968 HemisFair in San Antonio.


I remember hearing Lady Bird Johnson describing her first visit in a TV interview. Sadly, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr resulted in all the participating countries' flags being flown at half mast at the fair's opening.
 
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