In a Nutshell
Another of Philco's famous 17" Predicta Princess swivel TV's from 1959 in its most attractice color vermilion red is as good as it ever can get: recapped with strong picture tube, serviced aligned and working, in mint cosmetic condition
Introduction: Philco's iconic 1958 vintage TV "Predicta" remains one of the most remarkable design achievements of the last century. At least two companies (Telstar and CB Electronics) decided to rebuilt Predictas. Herbert Gosweiler, manager of Philco's product design group from 1954-1960 and marketing vice-president Henry Bowes pushed the concept of this futuristic TV design by Severin L. Jonassen, Richard J. Whipple and German emigrant Catherine Speyer Winkler. It was introduced to the public on the Philco sponsored Miss America TV show in September 1958 by Miss America 1959 Mary Ann Mobley. The public's reaction was enthusiastic, inspirations ranging from "looks like a women's wasp waist" to "looks like the mushroom cloud of a (then abundant) Bikini atomic bomb".
Collectors like the Predictas for their "space age" look, restorers hate them for their finicky electronic tempers, that plagued especially the 21" series from their very beginnings and, amplified by the advent of color TV not only led to a very short lifespan (1958-60) of the Predicta, but even caused the bankruptcy of Philco in 1962. The 1959 17" second generation compact models "Princess", "Siesta", and "Debutante" came in a perforated and finned metal cabinet painted in "dramatic" colours (vermilion, beige and mahogany), were less finicky and were sold for $280 (about 2 week's salary, or $2200 today). For sale here is the second 1959 Predicta H3410 Princess in vermilion red, that I thoroughly restored and serviced and that is now in mint cosmetic and working condition.
The quality problems mentioned are the reason that when searching the internet for "Predicta" mostly repair services and very helpful extended repair reports (like e.g. ref.2) turn up. Sam's photofact folder is free (ref.1) and very useful for diagnosing, repairing, recapping and aligning the chassis. An oscilloscope is mandatory and a signal generator helpful - a Predicta restoration is not for the beginner or faint-hearted though, since there are very high voltages (15 kV!) around.
About my Princess:
The TV is in mint visual and working condition with all parts being original (except replaced capacitors and resistors of course). And except the left side pair of knobs for on/off-volume and contrast, that were exchanged by a former owner against a perfectly and better-than-original matching golden knob set (pict.s 21 and 51 and footnote 2). The chassis has been gone through, all tubular capacitors, and tubes and resistors as necessary were replaced, all printed circuit boards painstakingly cleaned from grime and dust. The two critical components, the CRT and the 15kV flyback transformer were in perfect condition. The TV has been aligned with the help of an oscilloscope and a Hickok signal generator, after a warm-up period of 10 minutes. All controls work as they are supposed to. The set was tested with a VCR connected to the antenna through a 300 Ohm adapter (included in sale). Watch a video (click on pict.45) with the TV playing a section of "Made for Each Other" with Jimmy Stewart and Carole Lombard from 1939. The picture has good brightness and contrast and only small distortions, the sound is perfect. As all vintage TV's also this Predicta is not supposed to be used 24/7 like a modern TV. Please heed Sonny Clutter's advice (ref.3) how to operate a vintage TV. Please
e-mail me (Kris) for any questions, ich spreche Deutsch, je parle Français.
Footnote 1:
The designers of the Predicta series are known as: Catherine Winkler (Pedestal) [1906-1989], Severin L. Jonassen (Tandem) [born 1913], and Richard J. Whipple (all models) [1916-1964]. When searching for Winkler, one finds her Philco assignee patents signed with Catherine S. Winkler. There is another link to a page with many futuristic 1950's TV designs for Philco by a C. Speyer Winkler (pict.49, from www.wadictatv.com/winkler57.html, with kind permission of Ross Marshall). It is suggestive to assume that both persons are the same. Information about her is contradictory: German emigrant or Italian-American designer? Footnote 2:
The two left knobs of this TV are rarer than hen's teeth and highly wanted. I made a 1:1 drawing to encourage volunteers to make replicas of it (see pict.50 of the Princess sold). There was an attempt that failed because of two problems: a. there are 3 metal pieces that would have to be harvested from other knobs, b. the wall thickness of the outer knob's end that has to fit inside the small hole in the Princess, is prohibitively thin to not break, even with the metal spring cuff around. This problem is absent for the Holiday model, where the hole in the wooden cabinet is larger. In the unit for sale here these two knobs had been replaced by a sturdy and extremely good looking pair of gilded plastic knobs (picts. 21 and 51).
Here are the specifications:
Technical Description of Item
Manufacturer
Philco Corp. of Canada, Toronto, Canada
Model
Predicta Princess H-3410
Type
Early 17" TV with swiveling screen
Production Year
1959
Serial Number
142112
Cabinet
Red painted perforated and finned metal cabinet, screen beige plastic + lucite
Chassis, CRT, rectifier
10L43, 17DRP4 with 2.7V heater, 5U4
Tuning range
VHF Tuner 76-10524 channels 2 - 13, Video IF 45.75MC, Sound IF 41.25MC
Front Controls
On-off/volume/contrast and channel selector/fine tuning
Back Controls
Brightness, vert.&horiz. hold, width, vert.lin., horiz.frequ., height, range