Getting the band back together - need help picking a special Tv

[courtesi1]

So twice in the past I had gotten into video games and then sold my collection. Is third time the charm?

Well I think yes - but I am severely scaling back what I'm buying and only focusing on what I will at least pull out every couple of months.

Now while I already have a pretty nice LCD screen Tv I want to do things a bit differently... What I'd like to get is a Color CRT Tube Tv - but here's the catch...

I'd like to get one that was made in America.

Don't ask me why - I'm just in that kind of mood.

Does anyone know off the top of their head a list of 13" - 21" (or there abouts) of well made Color Tv's made in America? And by Made in America I mean completely made in America and just assembled from a made in China kit.

Any brands to be aware off? Top of my head is Zenith - especially since they had a factory in my home state of Illinois.

Help me put one of those bad boys back into use!

[Rickstilwell1]

So twice in the past I had gotten into video games and then sold my collection. Is third time the charm?

Well I think yes - but I am severely scaling back what I'm buying and only focusing on what I will at least pull out every couple of months.

Now while I already have a pretty nice LCD screen Tv I want to do things a bit differently... What I'd like to get is a Color CRT Tube Tv - but here's the catch...

I'd like to get one that was made in America.

Don't ask me why - I'm just in that kind of mood.

Does anyone know off the top of their head a list of 13" - 21" (or there abouts) of well made Color Tv's made in America? And by Made in America I mean completely made in America and just assembled from a made in China kit.

Any brands to be aware off? Top of my head is Zenith - especially since they had a factory in my home state of Illinois.

Help me put one of those bad boys back into use!

You're not the only one who is on the third time. My challenge is to play only roms, backups from my last collection and games I already ended up not selling (which happened to be for Gamecube and newer) and buy copies of the games/take the copies I have home from work only if I can finish them on all of their modes with all playable characters. This will cut my focus back to a small spectrum of games that will grow only when I have time for it to grow. It is the way to end buying things I never use. Good endless arcade games and collection packs are exempt because they are guaranteed to be played for fun and should be acquired either way. I just have to like them and I'll get those ones. But their priority is lower than that of completed games. Thrift store finds are in a different class due to their extremely low price and simply join the games that remain in my last collection's backlog. I only buy interesting looking ones at thrift.


You might want to be wary of Zenith. My grandpa had one that looked great for years but one day my uncle turned it on and it blew up. I mean big electric shock and bad smoke followed. I wasn't there but he told me it smelled terrible.

[DaveMMR]

So twice in the past I had gotten into video games and then sold my collection. Is third time the charm?
Does anyone know off the top of their head a list of 13" - 21" (or there abouts) of well made Color Tv's made in America? And by Made in America I mean completely made in America and just assembled from a made in China kit.

Any brands to be aware off? Top of my head is Zenith - especially since they had a factory in my home state of Illinois.

Help me put one of those bad boys back into use!

Kudos on going the CRT route.

Brand loyalty is all good but it seems harder now that CRT purchasing options are fairly limited. Especially considering I'm finding CRTs of all sizes for $5 to $10 at garage sales and thrift stores, I'm getting less and less picky.

However, if you can find an old Commodore 1702 Monitor, those are actually quite good (so long you don't mind gaming on a 13" screen.) It can even accept S-Video if you hack a cable to fit into the Luma/Chroma RCA jacks.

[wiggyx]

You're not the only one who is on the third time. My challenge is to play only roms, backups from my last collection and games I already ended up not selling (which happened to be for Gamecube and newer) and buy copies of the games/take the copies I have home from work only if I can finish them on all of their modes with all playable characters. This will cut my focus back to a small spectrum of games that will grow only when I have time for it to grow. It is the way to end buying things I never use. Good endless arcade games and collection packs are exempt because they are guaranteed to be played for fun and should be acquired either way. I just have to like them and I'll get those ones. But their priority is lower than that of completed games. Thrift store finds are in a different class due to their extremely low price and simply join the games that remain in my last collection's backlog. I only buy interesting looking ones at thrift.


You might want to be wary of Zenith. My grandpa had one that looked great for years but one day my uncle turned it on and it blew up. I mean big electric shock and bad smoke followed. I wasn't there but he told me it smelled terrible.

More likely an electrical issue in your grandpa's house than the TV itself. TVs don't typically "blow up", regardless of brand.

[Gameguy]

It would be difficult to find a TV still made in the US, most American companies stopped making sets in the US so long ago that any you find would probably need servicing or repairs already. Plus, there's a reason why TV sets from foreign companies became so popular, they were made better than domestic sets. For quality US sets in colour you'll be looking at sets from the 1960's or 1970's, by the 70's foreign companies like Toshiba were already becoming popular here. RCA would be another American company, prior to the 80's the sets were still made in the US, then they moved to Mexico for production.

As for that set that blew up, something probably failed with the power supply. Currently Zenith is owned by LG Electronics which is a South Korean company, it was bought out entirely in 1999 but by 1995 LG owned a controlling share of the company.

[Neb6]

Apparently the pre-1974 Quasar TVs were made by Motorola.

Other than that, I guess there's Zenith (during their pre-LG years) and RCA (as other have mentioned).


Any yeah, nothing like old-skool games on a CRT. Nice fuzzing effect on the pixels. In some cases, the designers were counting on the TVs to apply that little bit of diffusion.