TV Museum

The MZTV Museum of Television features the earliest versions of the box:

The museum includes historically significant televisions—such as the RCA sets from the 1939 New York World’s Fair, which introduced television to the masses—and others that are important only by association, such as Marilyn Monroe’s personal set, a 1957 Magnavox, for which Znaimer paid $29,900 American. The oldest set is a 1928 General Electric Octagon model, which was used for experimental broadcasts in New York City and in the vicinity of GE’s plant in Schenectady, New York. Some sets in the collection, which extends to the present day but concentrates on sets from the 1920s through the 1970s, have the kind of spaceage design one would expect from a technology that cut its teeth covering rocket launches. Others were made to look like fancy furniture—an important consideration in the early days, when programming was broadcast only a few hours a day and sets went unused for long stretches.

Znaimer likes to point out that there are fewer pre–World War II televisions still in existence than Stradivarius violins (around 500 of the latter). A few other individuals have collections that rival his, and some of them can even be viewed by the public, but these tend to be bare-bones operations. The MZTV Museum is the only collection that treats television in a way that is worthy of the medium itself. By comparison, there are at least a dozen major computer museums in North America alone.

Click here for the entire article. (The slides of the early sets are neat.)