Customer Reviews

The Golden Age of Televisions

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I'm not literate enough--I make typing errors too--to add to the BEAUTY of this work. Saw it in a bookstore but I thought I'd try "A.com". What's shipping, etc.? I was slow to buy ebay--but I'm not missing this book! If I'm reviewer #3-- I have some sorta dibs on communicating w/Mr. Collins. I only felt comfy w/looking at the pics--but the layout, props, & text are segs I'm looking forward to examining closely. Holmes says it's very interesting & elementaryly XLNT--a veritable ABC's of TV. If you like this book email me--cause I want to see/know more early TV stuff--thanks--to this book, I hope we all will be energized to share TV history images. davideo has left the box. P.S. GOOD GOIN' GARY B.!(Photographer)

Boy, does this bring back memories, and although I did not see any of the several different sets that I grew up with in the 50's and 60's, there were some models here that were very familiar to me. Philip Colins and Gary Brod have done this creatively but without clear objective. I constantly found myself wishing for more descriptions of the various models. I had some real questions about them, and felt a little cheated that there was not more information about how they came to be. I did not need the information about television events -- where does one begin? Mr. Colins gave us a few, but it is like having 3 pieces to a 6,000- piece puzzle. The photos were great, however, and now I would like to see their book "Radios: The Golden Age."

The Golden Age of Television is the latest "picture book" from Philip Collins (author of the well-known "Radios: The Golden Age" and "Radio Redux"), this time focusing on classic television sets from the 20's to the early '90s. I say "picture book" because Collins' books are always scant on text -- he's only written 3 pages of text on television design, the rest devoted to synopses about important TV "events" -- but the pictures (by Garry Brod) are what make the book. And what great pictures! The book is a pictorial survey of television design from its beginnings. A lot of the trends in television are implied, like the pictures that show the evolution in design that lead to the famous Philco Predictas of 1958-59. The pictures are stellar, accompanied by contemporary magazine covers, ads and cartoons. Still, you sometimes wish Collins would spend more time getting things straight. For example, its a bit incongruous reading all about "American know-how" followed by several pages of English-made sets, or to see a picture of Phil Silver's "Sgt. Bilko" appear on a pair of British-made sets from the early 50's. I ended up buying my copy from the States (online through Amazon.com) because General Publishing had not yet secured a Canadian distributor. This is one of the first books aimed at the non-specialist that will undoubtedly help raise interest in the field. Books like this remind us of the times when TV sets were not just the flat monitors they are today, but when they had real character.