Mel and I picked this up not too long ago. We loved the look of this set and it was very clean (as though no one had ever really used it). I am unsure of the year, but I am guessing 1957-1959. This is a black and white television but the unique thing about this unit is that it is slim. It can hug a wall really close without taking up too much space.
That’s a lean machine!
I took it to my good friend Fred Deal to tune it up and replace all the paper capacitors with Mylar capacitors. He restores mechanics of antique, crank phonographs, reproducers, cylinder and disc type players. He also rebuilds antique radios and TVs to better than factory specs with new Mylar capacitors. It runs like a champ now and will look great in our Tiki room for movie night.
What a looker!
I know some of you might own vintage tv’s but may have no idea how to get your DVD player to play through it. Let me help you with that quandary. You will need the following items:
Television RF converter: you can find these at Wal*Mart, Target and most places that have an electronics section. I purchased a very basic cheap one because there really isn’t a need to spend more.
DVD Player: I purchased this one from Wal*Mart. It was around $50 and what I like about it is that it is small and compact. I didn’t need anything fancy because I am only watching classic movies on this tv. If you wanted you could go all out and get one with surround sound set ups.
TV Matching Transformer: This will make everything come together. You will hook this up to the antenna leads on the back of your television.
Coaxial Cable: You’ll need this to connect the tv matching transformer to the television RF converter.
The first thing you do is connect the tv matching converter to the back of the television. This will be achieved by unscrewing the two ports on the back of the television enough to slide the connectors on the tv matching converter underneath, then tighten down.
Then hook the coaxial cable to the tv matching converter. Once that is done then connect the coaxial cable to the back of the television RF converter to the connection port that is listed as “to tv“. The next step is to take your red, white and yellow RCA cables (usually come with the RF converter) and connect them to the back of the television RF converter and the DVD player.
Once all this is done then plug everything in and test it out. You may have to put a movie in and play it while you search for the right channel. Once this is done then all you have to do is sit back and enjoy the show!
There is something about watching an old film on a vintage tv. It makes it feel more authentic and more enjoyable…or at least that is what I think.
This will be a great addition to our other vintage televisions! (Philco predicta, Philco swivel Miss America, Ultra atomic television).
Hepcats Haven 
Shane—-It is more than likely a 1960’s GE Coaxial TV….it was advertised as having the largest TV speaker available at the time
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Oh, thanks buddy. I was kind of amazed at the size of the speaker. Hope all is well man!
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Actually Frank the first version of this TV came out in 1958 to see what it looked like check the link below.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1958-General-Electric-Biggest-Speaker-In-Television-Advertisement-/160787122207?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item256fa8c81f#ht_720wt_1180
http://www.ebay.com/itm/General-Electric-Designer-TV-1958-Vintage-Print-Ad-/160809304244?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2570fb40b4#ht_500wt_1180
Shane’s version looks similar to this but does not have the pushbutton power tuner that all 1957/1958 GE and Hotpoint Full sized TV’s had. It looks to me like they took the guts of this table top TV in the 1958 GE ad in the second link above and put it in a more contemporary version of the 1958 cabinet. From that I surmise Shane’s TV is from 1959 as GE had done away with the push button power tuner on its console/bookcase models by 1959
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This is gorgeous! I would LOVE to have a TV like this.
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Thanks Molly! We love it too.
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Ah, knowledge I hope to put to use in the future. It’s a lovely set, and I also think there would be something magical about seeing old movies on a vintage machine.
Thanks!
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I’m glad you plan to put the tutorial to use!
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will you get audio with this or will you need to run the audio to separate speakers?
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I was able to get audio with the hookup I described, but every TV could be different.
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Your DVD player doesn’t have an RF out? I’ve never had a DVD player that didn’t have RF out.
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Hello-
We did all this and we can get sound but no picture, we get picture with snow, we were told it’s the tuner and a vintage tv shop is charging us about $500.00 to fix the RCA Victor 1958 any suggestions out there in tv land. Help!
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