RCA Victor Master 21 Big Screen Television

Big Screen TV in the 1950s!! 21 glorious inches in black and white!! Well, one thing hasn't changed since the 1950s - - the price for 'big screen' television!! At $199.95, I think the price may be compatible with a $3,000 big screen 1080P HDTV of today??...

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• RCA
• Victor
• Master
• 21
• Television
• Big
• Screen
• 1950s
• commercial

[georgef551]

$199.95,

That's about $1,700 in today's money, to prove how ex$pen$ive TV sets were in the '50's.

[weenielongus]

@georgef551, if U think about it, this commercial is selling the RCA 21-inch 'Big Screen' TV!! Today, if perhaps U go to buy a 55 to 60-inch 'Big Screen', you're gonna spend around $1,700, so it's all relative I guess?!? The more things change, the more they stay the same... ;+)

[Seer11665]

@hebneh That Guy must be small then

[Seer11665]

At lease it was made in America, I remember my grandmother having one in her basement, us kids would play with thinking it was a toy

[Sheri451]

@inkey2 Yes you're right about the channel changer. On one of our TVs we had to change it with a wrench because the changer knob broke on it. We were like that too about the stations. We got CBS NBC ABC and an independent station, and PBS and that was all.

[inkey2]

@Sheri451 the thing that always broke first on these TVs was the mechanical plastic knob to change channels. Either the knob would break or down inside. And yet most people only got 4 station signals well.......so it was not like we were constantly channel hopping. I guess the big factor was that kids were very rough on those knobs

[pbatommy]

@JGold523 I heard a radio commercial recently here in NYC. The voice sounded an awful lot like your grandfather, Stan Sawyer. Is he still doing voiceover work?

[Sheri451]

And I guarantee you that RCA Victor Black and White TV lasted well into the 60s. Maybe into the early 70s.

[jdollinter]

We had the old 21 inch RCA Victor cube with the knobs on the side. It got a lot of use so we depended our TV repairman and neighbor Gus to make twice yearly visits to fix something. My Sister and I looked forward to our Friday nights with the Flintstones. We had a couple child size chairs we'd plant in front and Mom would give us popcorn in small wooden bowls with orange pop.It was understood that Friday Night Flintstones was reserved for us even though our Dad also looked forward to the show.

[JGold523]

Stan Sawyer is my grandfather. I love this ad. I've seen it in compilations, but I'm glad to see it in its own video! "See how much bigger it is than my head" always makes me laugh because he and I both have rather large heads haha

[fromthesidelines]

This is a 1954 RCA Victor TV ad, featuring "The Voice of RCA" (in their commercials during the '50s), Stan Sawyer. When he wasn't pitching RCA products on camera, Vaughn Monroe was...

[georgef551]

@weenielongus

The way you're thinking about it works as well, in terms of the "Big Screen" aspect.

TV's back then, quality-wise, were made very superior compared to today's sets. The older ones lasted, and far better built. Since they were actually built by people, it costs a lot more.

If costs of manufacture followed inflation, a simple CRT set would cost over a grand.