1949 Tele Tone TV 209 Vintage Television

This is a TeleTone model TV209 from 1949. I restored the electronics on this 60 year old TV last year, the cabinet still needs a little attention. Nicknamed a Porthole set because the face of the picture tube is not masked off to create the standard 4:3 image. Sets like this either stretch the vertical to fill the screen or zoom the entire picture thereby cutting off the sides, neither option is correct as far as watchability but it allowed the maker of the set to advertise more square inches of screen without actually having a bigger tube. Completely round picture tubes were pretty much gone (except for Color sets) after about 1951. The chassis in this set is a modified version of the RCA 621, 721 chassis, typical of TeleTone it s been cheapened somewhat but it really works very well. There is a slight audio buzz that s exaggerated by the camera, in reality it s not so bad. The video playing is a Public Domain episode of Betty Boop downloaded from the Prelinger Archives.