This 40 year old TV appears to be "new old stock" 

TV was never turned on since it was manufactured 40 years ago…when it finally is, the signals it was designed to receive are no longer on the air. There’s something a little sad about that.

I worked at a retirement home that was built in 1987. I would walk through the apartments and asked the manager when the appliances had been changed to new ones and he laughed at me and said these are the original appliances from 1987. They looked absolutely like they were just manufactured yesterday and they were 35 years old! Old people go easy on things.

This was my first TV. My parents gave it to me as a gift back in 1984 in my own room. Wow has this taken me back, thanks for sharing.

I vote to keep the TV set intact as is. I suspect you’ll encounter another one for parts.

As a kid, I was given a shed to have as a workshop (with power). This was where I did all of my electronics stuff, and I picked up one of these TVs for cheap at a garage sale. I remember watching a lot of shows on it, in black & white - in the 90's, while working on projects.

"40 years old! This must be from the 60s! :D" -my brain *checks current year and does math* Oh... oh no.. I've aged...

I got this set from my grandpa when I was a kid. He used it in a RV. And it came with a ac cable and also a car cigarette lighter plug cable, you would unplug the ac cable and plug the car cable right into the back. and I would watch it in the car on road trips lol

Watching an old black and white TV in 3040 x 1440 on something that's not plugged into the wall is awesome

You need to change the spot killer capacitor in that set. Otherwise, it's immaculate inside. What a rare find !!

I have a theory that this might have never been sold to the public, and was from a smaller electronics retailer, and it was kept in their warehouse till the person who gave it to you came across it from someone cleaning out said warehouse. Regardless of its history this is a very nice set indeed.

18:17 the interference on channel 23 looks like it's from a digital over-the-air channel. KPXG in Portland is on UHF channel 22, so that might explain it.

Never thought I`d get nostalgic over static on a TV!

The angled handle entry is likely due to the fact that a mold feature which has a inset that changes angle creates a catchment that prevents it from getting out of the mold. Any time you mold rigid plastic you have to be careful about design so you can actually remove it from the mold without making it a multipart mold with seam lines.

Clint has spoiled me into thinking new old stock means an unboxing (and a sniff test lol)

I had this EXACT tv growing up as a kid. It was the B&W set that was old and my parents gave me to play around with. It's SO amazing to see a complete one! Adrian, please take care of it!

You know what I miss about the old crt tvs? as a kid I loved the feeling of the screen static on the back of my hand when I brushed it across the screen, and the crackle. I was an odd, odd child, I still remember pulling vacuum tubes from old abandoned TVs and radio's to throw at walls because they used to make a loud popping noise when they imploded.

🤔😉😀😀👍👍👌👌👍👍 Those old CRT's are amazing... Pity that we forget about them day by day... I don't have CRT's collection but I do have nice collection of vintage phones and have plans to make some videos about them...

These are called "GE Performance Television" - You can find lots of photos of them if you Google image search that term. I had one of these when I was a kid as my first TV. The coloration on mine was way different though, the speaker grille was too. Mine had a manufacture date of September 1976 and I got it from a yard sale in the early 90s. I think those are all 12" display size. I remember really liking the separate power and volume controls, as well as the little shunk noise from the sliding power switch. I ended up passing it down to my little sisters when I got my first color TV and they used it for several years until it went pop and died one day. ☹

I happen to be a fan of a show that's been running since the 60s, so I'm considering buying one of these older TVs to watch the older episodes on

Oh, I didn't know that's the reason for the "No serviceable parts inside" thing, it makes a lot more sense now!

Amazing. This TV brings back memories. My folks had one just like it on their kitchen table. You're right about the handle. But, if I recall correctly, the center of balance of the TV was such that you fingers would be more or less horizontal after you picked it up. After you lifted it, the bottom of the TV would swing forward a bit.

What an opportunity to be able to evaluate this old of a CRT that hasn't been used and at 18:23 I get Fallout Pip Boy vibes!

My Grandma had one very similar in her bedroom, she had two beds in there we used to all us kids lay on the second bed and watch it. This was the early 80's. We didnt care it was black and white, it was just cool to have a tv we could watch what we wanted and the adults watched the living room tv. Back then you had to fight to watch what you wanted, not like nowadays where everyone has their own in their hands.

Maybe channel 24 is a strong digital TV broadcast station in your area and it's interfering with the tuner?

Outstanding. 52 years old and I thank you for transporting me to 1980.

we must fix that spot!

I think this is the exact model I had as a kid (I'm 41 now). It got GREAT reception. It met its end when I accidentally pulled it off of the hamper in the bathroom. I used to watch TV when taking a bath (far enough away).

The spot shows just how much capacity is in that tube electrically and also how much thermal mass the cathode heater has - cause when I have my patchwork of CRT info in the right place, the dot should disappear when either the acceleration voltage drops under a critical point or the cathode cools down enough to no longer emit electrons. I am willing to bet that this set was not winning any energy saving ribbons even back in the day 😅 But vintage tech isn't supposed to be a daily use device anyhow. 👍

I just learned something today! I didn't know that the "No user serviceable parts inside" had this history, thanks! I have no need for a test pattern generator but I want that device for some reason! :D

Regarding why someone might have a GE TV that they never used -- back in the day, GE used to sell refurbished goods to their employees, these were known as Class (single letter) products. For the life of me, I can't remember the letter now, I knew it 50+ years ago. Anyhow, the Class "n" products were often better than new, because they had been individually touched/serviced, so the employees snapped them up and they were great bargains. So perhaps an employee bought a "spare" TV at the Class "n" sale (they only happened once or twice a year) but never needed the spare TV.

Wish we could turn back time, to the good old days.

This TV would work in some locations here in Brazil, as some regions still have the analog transmission signal. I would love to see you play Atari 2600 on it.

Reminds me when I found a late 60's TV that was NOS. It had Tubes (More like compactrons) but I never got it up and working. Was before I knew that Caps had a life span.

I got this exact same tv around 1980. Same color and everything. If I remember correctly it had a label saying it was manufactured in 1979. I used it until the mid to late 1990’s. When you turned it off the picture shrank in size on the screen. Eventually the VHF knob cracked and the slide on/off switch didn’t work all the time. Great little tv. Thanks for the video. Lots of great memories.

It appears like a time traveller dropped off a new TV to you from the 70s Adrian! 😁

A TV like that one brings back some memories. That one does look like it's never been used or definitely used very lightly. Great find.

Yaaaaaaaay CRT stuff again 😍

My family had one of these in the 70s and I took it to college in the late 80s. Somewhere around here I even have a photo of me in my dorm room with this TV in the background. What was great about this set was that from my hometown of South Bend, Indiana, the built-in antenna could be aimed to pick up Channels 9 and 32, and a very ghosty 44, out of Chicago. None of the other TVs we ever owned could do that. Ours had an earphone jack, which I used to record some early-1980s TV sounds onto cassette. Sure wish I knew what happened to that cassette.

I watched the launch of the space shuttle Columbia on a TV like this one that we had on our kitchen table. I was late for school that day. Worth it. 📺

I vote to keep the tube in there! Just use this set as your b&w set!

Used one of those back in the day for my zx81…back then I was happy to get anything. Did a lot of programming on that machine. Many upgrades like memory, keyboard.

When I was a little kid, I was scared of a glowing television set in the dark. It just freaked me out.

Interesting you can see the dust fly off the set when he turns it on for the first time. Static electricity is fun!

I bought a GE black and white TV in 1980. It went everywhere with me. It worked well in 2020 when I turned it in for recycling. I was sad to see it go.

In the early 80's, we only had one television in the house. I remember it had problems and my grandparents borrowed this type of b&w GE set to my parents so we could have something to watch. I also remember that the little GE could bring in the UHF channels with it's own antenna better than our early 70's Quasar color tv that had an antenna on the roof.

I had that TV as a kid!!!! It's been so long since I seen 300ohm Rabbit Ears antenna screws. Oh the memories!!!

Such sets were in deed popular in those days. I had a similar 12" B/W set made by Philips, probably got it in the mid seventies. Later I replaced it with a slightly larger color set.

The speaker has a date code of week 38 of 1980, so this could be an '80 or very early 81 set. Yeah, this TV looks like it was just taken out of the box. That's crazy clean inside.

wow this brings back memories as a kid. I remember those dials having to fiddle with the tuning ring to get the fuzz out.

I had one like it in my bedroom when I was a teenager in the 80's, and I used it in my first apartment. It worked great and costs about $60. new in 1981.

That size TV was often used in RV's/travel trailers due to the small size. So it may have been in an unused RV in storage for a long time.

I’ve taken many TVs apart over the years, but, to be honest, that is THE first TV I have EVER seen that did not have a boot on the high voltage lead.

Actually had this same model when I was a kid. A great video! Thanks for sharing!

I literally had the exact model TV in my parent's kitchen growing up. Watched many a Saturday morning cartoon on it.

Awesome! I noticed that fuse before you pointed it out and was like "uh...what the heck?"

I actually had that same model when I was young. It was a second place prize for candy sales

God, you make me feel old! I had that exact same model of TV during my college days! I bought it second-hand for $30.

Nice find. It reminds me very much of my first TV I bought as a child in 1982. As you mentioned, the price of them went way down around that time and I was able to buy one new somewhere between $40-$50. Wasn't long though until I moved to color as sometime in 83, my dad gave me a 19" color tv to stop me from tying up the living room set when I wanted to play my video games in color.

Had one when I was 10. Used to cover it with a blanket and watch it when I was supposed to be sleeping. The Tonight Show, David Letterman, Taxi. Thanks for the memories.

What a great set !....cheers.

If you need that crt for the computer absolutely do it. Imo. I'd wager the tv was a door prize and sat in the basement because "perfectly good tv can't throw it out". Exited to see more of the that trs 80. Loved the videos on the drives :)

Back in the 70's you learned one thing about portable TV's - never trust a plastic carrying handle. I did one day, taking a customer TV upstairs to the workshop, the handle gave way, the TV bounced all the way down two flights of stairs to the bottom, and i got well chewed out over it, we had to buy the customer a new TV. I learned electronics and TV servicing the hard way, trial and error. Glass valves were the best, much easier to fix, and practically indestructible, you could get a glass valve so hot the glass would soften and the vacuum suck it in, and it would still work afterwards. I also remember selenium rectifiers, you knew when they had failed the moment you walked into the house, they stank of rotten fish. And you knew when a set has been in a house with a smoker, the EHT stages would be covered in thick sticky nicotine tar.

Ah, more CRT content! Love it! Never seen such a clean tube so far in real life. But then again, I don't tend to look for b/w televisions and are always out for some small color tubes. The design of these, however, like this one shows, was just pure awesomeness :-) Thanks for sharing!

My parents had a 9" GE color TV in the kitchen in the early 1980's . The case was much more square, and had lots of fake woodgrain. It had two rod antennas, with a UHF "bowtie" antenna that clipped onto one of the rod antennas. It also had the service manual in a plastic cover that snapped into the main case on the back. I remember watching a few key world events on it, like the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake as it was happening (we thought that we were going to watch the World Series as we did dishes after dinner 😂 )

The date code and origin of manufacturing on the tube (Japan, 1970s), build quality of the set, and the date and location of assembly (El Salvador 1980) makes me wonder if someone had a glut of black and white tubes and this set was built to move old components before they were "worthless." The fact that this one sat unused sort of speaks to that!

I would Watch a bunch of Twilight Zone episodes on that just for the nostalgia before gutting it!!

That is the same TV we had when I was kid. Interesting to see it still in mint condition. We would often cycle the power on it to see if we could get the white dot that would appear when it was shut off to appear as bright and as long as possible. :) Later in the early 80's is became our primary monitor for the Sinclair ZX-80.

I had an uncle that made a cloth cover for his tv when it wasn't in use, he believed that sunlight and indoor lights could degrade the screen over time, plus he said keeping dust out of the cabinet would prolong it's life. All his TV's were old but they looked new like the one in this video. When he eventually bought a VCR in the 80's he was even more concerned about dust, he would clean the entire VHS cassette before he uncovered the VCR to put the tape in.

Fun video. I had a 12 inch black and white TV in my bedroom as a kid. That's where I would go to watch things my parents weren't into, like Doctor Who.

The TV looks like it came out of the box a few days ago. Not a single dirt in it. Pretty amazing

My grandmother had this exact same TV in her eat in kitchen when I was growing up. It sat on top of the "portable" dishwasher. remember those?

My tv is the low-end hybrid version (for people how don't now the tv uses tubes and transistors). Only cosmetic difference is mine has a different speaker grill and is orange. Mine was made 1975.

Man this brings back memories. My parents had this tv in the kitchen when I was growing up!

That TV is gorgeous! I want it!!

WOW!!!!!!!!!!! First TV I ever owned! Bought in 1979 with HS grad money. I watched the 1980 Olympics on it... including the USA earning hockey gold!!! Why am I so thrilled about an old and tiny TV???

I wonder if someone bought this new for a camp because it was cheap on sale, stored in side an enclosed TV cabinet, and then later left it there and it never got used, or only used for a few minutes a year.

This is exactly the kind of TV set a movie studio might want if they were making a show set in the 70's. You need a set from the 70/80's that looks brand new

I am guessing that it might need an alignment. It kinda needs to have a old school Atari under it honestly.

You sir are an outstanding QC tech. Very interesting as this would have been a set I could have afforded in 1980 or 81.

I had this very same set in my bedroom from the mid to late 90s when I was a teenager. It was a great little TV. I vividly remember watching WCW Monday Nitro and playing PlayStation on it. The black and white picture certainly added to the atmosphere while playing Resident Evil. Good times. I miss that TV. Sadly, I don't remember what happened to it after I got a 13" color Philips TV/VCR combo.

I never thought I would one day look at a TV and think it was beautiful.

SO many memories! I have not been able to repair mine but it is the first TV I watched a Chicago Cubs game one. Thanks for showing this perfect conditioned one!

I picked one up for $5 at a rummage sale early 90"s, around age of 10 and still have it sitting in that same upstairs bedroom of mine. Takes me back to warm summer nights, rural Dakota farmhouse, sleepovers with good friends watching Letterman then MASH would come on (only got 1 channel back then), then wake up to the National Anthem as the station went off the air.

I bought that same TV in the Fall of 1980 for my college dorm room. Funny that you talk about them being cheap - that one really wasn't, or at least it didn't seem so to me at the time. It was $129.99 at Kmart, which would be well over $400 today. I remember that vividly because it was a lot of money and I hated having to call my dad to ask if it was okay to purchase and to make he'd cover it since my old tv died. It was a reliable little set that we used for decades. I'm not sure if it may still be in storage at my parents' house. Thanks for the nostalgia trip.

Gotta love the thinking that went into that fuse placement.

I went to an estate sale, in a corner was a brand new GE B&W TV set in the original box. It was open on the top, still in the original plastic bag. Manufactured in 1967. When you find something like that, it instantly becomes bigger than you and you should be a good stewart to it. I paid $15.00, sold it for $1000.00 on eBay. A true unicorn.

What a lovely old B&W set! It always amazes me the items you end up with Adrian; over here in Eastern Oregon things like that are either exceptionally overpriced, or just don't appear on the used market. It's very cool to see; thanks for another great video!

Brings back fond memories. It was 1983. I was 10 y/o at the time and recall finding one of these small TVs that our neighbor had tossed out. I always had a fascination for electronics so I took it home to open it up and see if I could figure out what was wrong with it. Again, I was 10 at the time. No knowledge of electronics. Just figured if something was broke in this thing it would jump out at me. First thing I did after figuring out how to remove the back cover was the only thing I could at the time. I had no idea what I was doing, just stared and looked at its electronic guts waiting for the answer to come to me. After roughly 1/2 hour of probing, feeling the inside of this electronic wonder the idea came to me. UREKA! I didn't know it at the time but I had discovered what was known in the repair industry as the "technical tap". Grabbed a phone book nearby and gave the TV a good "tap" and wouldn't you know it, the TV sprung to life. Got a picture, sound. It was perfect. Well, not exactly. But I got both sound and picture to appear. So, there I was, swollen with pride thinking I had actually fixed this TV. Roughly 10 minutes into my so called "fix" however the screen went dark again. It would do this from time to time. Kept that large phone book by the TV set and every time that screen went dark, BAM! 😆 Some times I only had to give it a light whack other times I had to hit it a bit harder. Well, figuring I did not have a tv of my own I decided to keep it. I recall my mother watching me do this and told me that one day that tv would blow up on me from hitting it so hard. Some time passed and my parents got tired of hearing me abuse this poor tv set so they eventually purchased a tv for my room. Nothing fancy mind you but it was new and it did not require the use of my hand dandy phone book tool. Oh, did I mention it was a color TV? it was a color TV. No remote, still had to reach out and turn those knobs, and adjust those rabbit ears to get a clear picture. No cable.😔Eventually my old man broke down and paid for cable. 😉

The set you have was built here in Portsmouth Virginia. Alot of women in the area worked at that plant in the 60s,70s, and early 80s including both my grandmothers and my mother.

For those who may not have that much experience with them... CRTs are *dust magnets*. When they're running they build up a static charge that attracts dust to the screen, the vents, the interior, pretty much everywhere. That's one reason why it seems like it was never even turned on.

Maybe it was bought for a spare room, but another tv became available soon thereafter so this was stuck in a closet or attic and forgotten? These were usually spare sets, unless you were a kid with an 8bit computer or an Atari, and a kids budget. In later years most b&w sets sold for around $50.

My first entertainment center was one of these tv’s and an AM/FM transistor radio. Brings back memories.

Used to open all my families TVs including my own to clean out the dust off the tube, and cleaned the circuitry with iso alcohol. I was so young.

Greetings Adrian Happy Holidays, I just saw your videos about that late 1970's general electric black and white tv. When I was a kid our last black and white tv was almost the same one but with the volume button in the front. I really enjoyed that video thank you so very much. A++ BRAVO

I think that's the same little TV I had in my room as a little kid. I don't remember what happened to it but when I had it I was able to watch cartoons when I wanted (when they were on, old people get what I'm saying) and it was a happy time.

What a great little TV set, my 80s b&w set is completely worn out

Very cool. Although, I find myself more intigued by the VG91. I guess I missed that video. A very cool tool, for sure. I picked up a BK PRECISION 1211E NTSC PATTERN GENERATOR last spring -- a nifty little hand-held unit for generating various signals and test patterns and outputting RF, composite and S-video. But the VG91 is a whole other story. 😃

This make and model was in my parents bedroom in the 80's and then mine in the 90's. I remember watching star trek and and 'In Living Color' but in black and white. Weird flashback...

i had a slightly bigger portable tv that was from my grandmother, and she gave it to my parents and then i got it. And i used it in my caravan and had it on a shelf all the way against the ceiling and once i forgot to take it down before i was going to drive, and on the destination i found it laying on the floor, but it was still in one piece and still working! I gues that it fell on the soft couch first and then rolled off on to the floor, but that's still a foot and a half, so quality all the way! After 2000 i didn't used it anymore and kept it for another 15 years because of youth sentiment, but had to take it to the trash because it didn't work properly anymore, and the picture quality can't compete with todays tv's, so it was time to let it go but it was a damn fine tv that entertained 3 generations! Now i also have a old 70's tape deck from Akai , and i sure don't trash that one because i rarely still use it, because sitting and playing and listen to the music that i have on the tapes is the closest as i can get to the 80's, so in a way it's a time machine for the mind and i love it!

Adiran, remember that the old Analog UHF spectrum is now used by phone comapnies and other wireless inet companies. There is a good chance that your interference was coming from one of those sources.