I just had word of a really rare Oz TV.
It's a 1st generation Pye W101 from 1956 but with a 21 inch CRT. Only a handful of these were made before the chassis orientation changed to an "alongside the tube" layout.
This set would have been around for the start of TV in 1956 and the Olympics.
It still has its original Mullard 21ALP4 and looks to be in very clean original condition.
So, if you heard of what is the equivalent of a pre-war UK set discovery, would you make a 1000km drive to get it?
The provenance of this TV is known, and there was a service history card inside, love the name of the service company!
You need to know that the Oz TV makers in '56 had a gentlemen's agreement not to release 21" TVs until '58 so they could recover their tooling costs on the 1st generation 17" TVs that had been in development for some years prior.
Admiral broke that agreement. (They actually made no 17" sets at all)
This makes a '56 build Pye 21" a very rare beast.
I leave tomorrow AM on the long drive!
@irob2345 Belcher had quite a large service organisation in the North West of England in the 1960’s, I wonder if there was a connection.
Frank
Well they weren't in NSW, I'd have heard of them, being in the industry at the time. Maybe just Victoria.
Is 1000kM one way or the round trip? If it’s the latter then I have done it, the journey was almost 1300KM (800 Miles) to Exeter and back from Durham including detours to drop off and move sets for other forum members. It was to collect a rare Philips 1756U, post war 1955 but which was my childhood TV. Did the whole journey in one day also. Had it been 2000KM then yes I would still have done but with a stopover of course, I had been looking for one of these for years.
The set was from eBay and not a lot of notice, I did have some luck in that just before I was about to go my company estate car broke down and was given a Jeep Grand Cherokee as a loan. For such a long journey this was a boon with big comfy heated seats. Another bonus, free company fuel at the time.
John.
A friend of mine gathered some very nice German radios for me back in the late 1990s: as a result I flew to Munich, had a short holiday with him and then hired a car, loaded it up with the sets and drove back to Peterborough with them, diverting briefly to Bromley. I left Munich at 0800 local time and got home around midnight GMT.
I still can't believe I did that.
In 1978 I drove from Edinburgh to Bodmin 816 km to buy my HMV901 and that was in our Reliant Rebel.
1632 km if you count the round trip.
Peter
Furthest I’ve been so far was from Coningsby to Colwyn Bay, 201 miles (took an odd route to stop at our favourite pub!) one way, that was to pick up an Ekco RS3, that was in January 2018. Strangely I quite liked driving back then! It would have to be something really rare and interesting for me to go to such lengths now. The last set I went to pick up was an Ekco AD65 from Hull, I didn’t like driving round there much.. I was eyeing up a Kuba Portacolor TV the other day, collection only from Stevenage, but I really don’t fancy the journey!
It's in Geelong, which is 956 km of mostly freeway driving, and mostly deadly boring!
I'll break the trip in Albury (600 km from here, on the NSW - Vic border) and visit my friend and fellow collector Pete. Then do the return trip to - from Geelong in the one day.
I hope that 1956 CRT still has some life left in it!
Wow that is a drive! To put it into prospective to drive the length of England from Land's end to the Scottish border is less! (841 KM). And to answer your question, No I wouldn't! ( I am 62 with an elderly Ford though)
First leg completed.
Picked up a brand new Toyota Corolla Cross hybrid rental from Avis at Brookvale at 8 this morning. (TV won't fit in my car.) Unlimited Ks.
Arrived in Albury at 2pm. 600Km. It took a full tank of fuel, I was disappointed in the fuel economy until I discovered the tank only holds 30 litres.
@irob2345 I made a similar comment to my neighbours about the Fiat 500s I'd been hiring, saying they covered less distance per tankful than my BMW - then I discovered the tank on a 500 is about thirty or so litres too...
That Toyota impressed me today.
In heavy but fast moving 4 lanes of traffic on the M80 on the way to Geelong, a van suddenly changed lanes into my path. The collision avoidance system reacted far quicker than my reflexes would have and took evasive action for me. No dents, no skid marks. Impressive.
TV is currently in the back and I'm back in Albury.
Well yes! I have enlisted the help of some international couriers to collect rare German TV sets, mostly Telefunken, Saba, Nordmende. These sets were simply not around in the UK. The sets were relatively inexpensive, but courier costs could be. But it was worth it. it took a lot of logistics to contacts the seller, arrange a time, payment on collection. All this had to tie up with the courier route across Germany. I lost a few but gained a few too. Not sure if I would do it again (this was about 3 years ago). But if you want them, you have to get them!
Paul, do you by any chance also own a Goggomobile?
I have a 1956 Saba in the garage waiting its turn (and the cabinet resto).
Not heard of a goggomobile! Funnily enough Goggo was my nickname in the TV workshops at Thorn!
Paul
I've never drove that far one-way and back to pick up a TV, though I have made a triangle trip twice that far to pick up a TV and also some rocks (I collect mineral speciments too.)
But in fact all my TVs except a couple of small portables have been a bit over 300 miles one way,
all to the same place, the Early TV Museum in Hilliard Ohio. Some of the TVs had people driving
300 miles one way from the other direction to get them to me there.
I bought a large SUV just to do that. I must admit I love that thing ... its comfy and since i
its high-riding water spray behind trucks is not bad. One sees people there in huge rental vans
or U-Hauls (small rental moving vans) filled with TVs.
The ETF! Only 300 miles away! Lucky you!
Last time I went there it involved a 24 hour non-stop flight from Sydney to LA (fortunately in an A380) followed by a drive from LA to Hilliard OH over several days on Route 66 (what's left of it).
For long haul flights such as this the A380 is utterly unbeatable. Quiet, smooth, roomy and comfortable, with a choice of 3000 movies. Catch up on all the classics you never got around to seeing.
