Early Color Television

Motorola 16CK1

Early Television

Click on picture for high resolution image

This set was Motorola's first production color set, made in 1954. It uses the RCA 15GP22 CRT.

This information is from Bob Galanter, who interviewed Richard Ridenour, the previous owner of this set:

The set was originally given as a prize in a contest to an elderly lady by a Wisconsin TV station.  Because there was little color programming at the time the set was purchased from the lady by Collins Radio Co. where Richard was an employee.  Richard was a graduate of one of the electronic schools and worked at Collins as a writer of technical manuals.  Prior to his career at Collins, Richard was in the Army Signal Corp. and also in the Air Force.  At some point the 16CK1 was being tossed out at Collins and Richard salvaged the set and took it home.  He said that the set had all the tubes removed and he repopulated the set to see if he could get it to work.  And when he got it running he found the crt had a dead gun, so it didn't function and at that point he pulled the tubes and stored the set never again to plug it in.

Motorola sponsored a contest to give away a 16CK1. The details were printed on a FAB Detergent box.