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For my wedding present my two brothers and my sister chipped in and bought us a 19" RCA color TV with a remote the size of a shoe. Price was $500 a very generous gift. Best Buy has a 55" TV for $249 for Black Friday. Just recycled the RCA which weighed 75 lbs, the 55" set 20 lbs. Progress.
In the early 50s, my grandmother wanted to buy a tv set. She had savings set up for her 4 kids. The set was black a nd white, the screen then was an oval about the size of a frisbee. It came in a big cabinet and had a record player in the bottom.
It was $500 then. My grandmother said if each child gave up $100, shed contribute the last $100 and pay the taxes on it. They did and bought it.
The ministers wife hurried up sunday evening service so they could all go to ky grandmother s to watch the Sunday night fights on the new fangled tv.
Somehow, i never could figure out how religion and prize fighting meet!!!
But tv only played on 3 channels then and only for about 3-4 hours a day.ANY show was worth watching then.
That set still sits in the basement at my parents house!
And the royal "I" will have to get rid of it when they pass away!
This thread is funny to me because I recently spent time and effort trying to have one of these huge heavy monster TVs removed from my 80 year old friend's house. Her kids bought her a 43" flat screen so the monster set had to go. She could not give it away or get anyone to haul it away. It took 2 men to move it and they almost busted a gut.
I can move my 32" TV by myself. Thank goodness for thin flat screen advancements. We do need a means to recycle the old sets though
My wife had a TV when we married in 1959. It was b&w and remotes had not been invented yet. I eventually hooked up a remote mute button that was connected with a wire that was run around the room. Very basic, but a big improvement.
Some years later we bought a color set. The remote was an accessory with a module that you had to plug into the front of the control panel.
One thing this has basically killed are TV repair businesses.
There used to be quite a few of those in town. Same thing with computer repair and building businesses. Today, computers and TVs are so cheap that they aren't really cost effective to repair.
Thanks for the memories and laughs! I am old enough to remember my grandmother having one of the 1960's style furniture-type radios and when most people had a "hi-fi" set that a also more like a piece of furniture; and I can still remember our family's first TV -- a 19"(about) black and white with the antenna right on top of it.
My mother still has an old TV. Just bought her a 43" for $220 for her 90th birthday Monday.
We were the last people on the planet to have a black and white TV. I know this because when I was 17, apparently there was some dissent over spending for the music program in the school budget. Our band director asked us to raise our hands if we had a color TV because "he wanted to see what people would spend their money on instead of music education."
I was the only one in the band who didn't raise my hand. Our TV still worked, so in my parents' minds there was no reason to get another one yet. On the other hand, we didn't watch much TV, and I'm grateful to them for not making that an important thing in my life. Sometimes I don't turn on my TV for a week.
Even now, my mother complains that there is nothing on. She really only watches cop shows and baseball and maybe Jeopardy and Wheel.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Our first as a kid in the 50s was one of those furniture-like with almost round screen. My first TV when I moved out and got an apartment in college (1971) was a 19" black and white, cost $20 from the front porch of a guy that sold them there, in a bad part of town. I wondered whether they were stolen. When I first bought a new one, it was 12" B & W. My first color TV was $399, 19" with no remote, after getting married, that we bought to watch the 1976 Summer Olympics. Now we have a 55" in the family room, 32" in the bedroom, and two 24" smart TVs in the travel trailer.
Thanks for the memories and laughs! I am old enough to remember my grandmother having one of the 1960's style furniture-type radios and when most people had a "hi-fi" set that a also more like a piece of furniture; and I can still remember our family's first TV -- a 19"(about) black and white with the antenna right on top of it.
lol, We had that growing up. It was a huge behemoth that held the tv and the stereo. we actually so ld it for a nice price because the cabinet was a gorgeous solid walnut wood.
Ah we had the first color tv on the block a huge RCA with a giant cabinet. A technician had to install it, wave this magnetic wand around the screen, adjust everything. I think it cost over $1,000. Seeing Bonanza in color was spectacular.
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