1949 Tele-Tone TV-209 Vintage Television

This is a Tele-Tone model TV-209 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 watch-ability 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 Tele-Tone 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.