Our First TV

As promised (here), I went through Mom's photo albums to come up with a nice photo of our first TV, the one we had back in the late 1950s and early 60s. (That's my chubby arm at left; I had to crop myself out of the photo, as I was apparently a budding nudist when the photo was taken.)

The photo is dated November 1960.

I had difficulty coming up with what brand it was. Mom didn't remember, and I wasn't sure what year Mom and Dad bought it. So I Googled all sorts of brands and models, not finding anything that resembled it.

I didn't make any progress until I noticed in some of the vintage advertisements that these types of televisions similar to furniture were sometimes referred to as cabinets. I also noticed that our TV had a little ornamental woodwork at the bottom that was not unlike French Provincial.

Using those two attributes, I finally determined that it was a Philco. It just remained to find the right model in an ad.

I couldn't find a dead match but this one (from an ad in the November 30, 1953 LIFE magazine) was similar (below).

There was also one in a 1954 Philco ad (below) on www.tvhistory.tv website that was pretty close.

After that year the particular style seemed to be phased out as I did not see it in subsequent ads.

Mom confirmed that the TV was a Philco. She picked it out because of its Maple finish and French Provincial-like design.

Anyway, it's fun for me to remember being a kid and watching Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound and Rocky & Bullwinkle in glorious black and white on that thing.