'New' HMV 904 discovered

[IanC_1950]

Forum members might be interested to know that a 1938 HMV 904 TV / Radio came up for auction on 25th April at Bolden Auction Galleries in their General Sale. (Bolden is just north of Sunderland).

Items in general sales tend not to go for much so I was hoping to pick up a bargain. Alas, someone had tipped off the auctioneer and he started at £1,000. After rapid bidding it sold for £2,500. At least it is now safe!

Does any member admit to being the new owner?

Ian

[The teleman]

Wow ! I did think you would find anything like that up here in the north east
Well saved whoever bought it
Let’s hope we see the restoration on this site
Chris

[ianm]

This would appear to be the first pre-war TV to have turned up on the market in quite a while now. A snip at the price, I'd say.

[Andrew2]

Looks in good nick, too.

[FERNSEH]

That'll the second HMV 904 to turn up in the North-East of England, got mine way back in 1984. The owner of the lived in Whitley Bay.
In the 1990s I bought an HMV 900 from a travellers caravan site near Bedlington in Northumberland.

DFWB.

[vinrads]

I am pleased that I sold mine at the right time , It sold for over £4000 on Ebay Mick.

[electronicskip]

What a marvellous looking unit, bargain at £2500!

[rogerdup]

I love this set !!

[FERNSEH]

Hi Roger,
I believe a version of this set was made for France as a Pathe-Marconi.

DFWB.

[rogerdup]

Interesting ! I will check for that David.

[FERNSEH]

Hi Roger,
Here it is, From the ETF:
http://www.earlytelevision.org/pathe_marconi.html

DFWB.

[Argus25]

Wow,

That was quite a lucky find for the buyer.

It was only less than 15 years ago that I got my 904. I bought it from the ETF in the USA. Odd that, a bloke in Australia buys a 904 from America. It was not expensive at the time, nothing like the current prices, a photo of mine & its restoration is here:

http://worldphaco.com/uploads/HMV__904_ARTICLE.pdf


It is very interesting what has happened to pre WW2 TV prices. I don't think that the HMV904 is a particularly rare set, apparently 40 or more are said to exist. They were a very futuristic design with multi-band radio included, so that really does make them unique and stand apart from other pre WW2 TV's.

Some rare pre WW2 TV's are the Andrea KTE-5 and and 1-F-5 and the Meissner sets, probably less than 20 exist of each type at this point, making them rarer than any violin made by Stradivari.

The trick is to get the TV restored and into perfect working order which increases their value. The Andrea KTE-5 and Meissner set can be seen here, both in perfect condition & working order:

http://worldphaco.com/uploads/THE_ME...DREA_KTE-5.pdf

With the prices for pre WW2 TV's as they are now, I think they have gone out of reach for many vintage TV enthusiasts and they are the kind of thing that will probably end up on Bill Gate's desk next to Leonardo's manuscripts and rare meteors.

[dtvmcdonald]

A Baird T23 with unknown condition CRT sold at the recent ETF auction for $4000, to a buyer known for not turning these sets on.

[peter_scott]

That's rather a shame as a good proportion of the interest in these sets is seeing how they actually performed.

Peter

[Argus25]

That is exactly right. The reason I have restored three pre ww2 sets is because I wanted to see first hand, when they were working properly, how good the Tv image was at that time in history. I know there are the photos in books, but its not the same. To that end I tried multiple CRT's in all of them too, to find the better performing one. Many wartime CRT's are gassy now, unfortunately and have low emission or soft focus. Of the 5BP4's I tested, the best one out of more than 20, was a late 1960 manufacture RCA type, the last of their production run.

[ianm]

Originally Posted by vinrads

I am pleased that I sold mine at the right time

No one else seems to have picked up on this, but I am curious to know the background to Vinrads' comment from earlier. Are you saying that prices are dropping?