admiral 30A14-N craigslist find

[cchaven]

Last week I spotted an Admiral 30A14-N on Craigslist.  It was about 30 miles from here and the seller and I went back and forth thru the week as he had time, him sending various pictures.  I went and picked it up today.  It's a 10" round tube TV in a walnut veneer console about 34" high.  Other than some of the veneer flaking along the bottom edges on the sides, the cabinet is in pretty nice shape.  More importantly, the set appears to be complete and unmolested, including the back panel, all wiring intact and all knobs.  Even the vast majority of tubes in it are original Admiral tubes.

It is the two-chasis 30A1 version, with three 6J6 tubes in the tuning section, indicating it has Channel 1.  There are also 13 clicks on the tuner selector, also indicating Channel 1.  From codes on the transformers and tubes, this set looks to be from 1948, which fits with everything else about it.  It has sat undisturbed in the owner's basement for the last 8 years and came from his wife's grandmother.  I hope to eventually get it restored and operational.

Jeff

[Phonesrfun]

Nice find.  I just restored a 5-tube radio.  The filter caps were shot and one tube was bad.  It turned out ok.  Good luck with the TV.

[marty]

Hi All;
They Just do NOT make them like they used to !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have a 1948 RCA, Also , with the 10" Round Tube.... Most likely it has a 10BP4, or something similiar.. I Don't Remember if mine has Channel 1 or not, I Just checked the Schematic for it, it has channels 2-13, only... Mine is an RCA 8T244, and I have both Rider and Sams for it, and they are different....
THANK YOU Marty

[rdelius]

I have a RCA 621TS set that I bought for $50.00 several years ago. Got it partially working but no work space now so I am not working on it. I do need to get a repro back for it . Had a RCA CTC5 but it was big and rough and sold it for $50.00.
Plan to go to the Charlotte AWA meet this spring.I need to sell tubes.Have many boxes of common ones.Robby

[bingster]

This particular Admiral is really neat.  It could be had with all kinds of matching components and cabinetry, such as a matching radio, phono, and even flanking bookshelves that would make the entire installation look "built-in" when placed side by side.  

I have a 1950 10" Motorola that used to work spectacularly well on it's original caps... for about a week. 

[Sargeguy]

I have a large Stromberg-Carlson that has been sitting in my basement for about 50 years or so, or at least since I was a little kid.  Not quite sure what to do with it.  Right now it has several phones on top of it.

[rp2813]

I have a 1950 Admiral 10" set in the bakelite cabinet.

I took the chassis to a local member of the Antique Radios site who re-capped it for me and it's now the guest room TV, hooked up to a converter and pulling digital signals from over the air via 60's vintage VHF-only rooftop antenna.

Admirals were right up there with top brands like RCA for building quality sets back in those days, and took a big chunk of market share as a result.

I'm betting that set will come back to life easily with just a basic re-cap job.  Don't even worry about the tubes.  The guy who fixed my set advised that tubes rarely go bad and didn't bother to replace any of mine.