Retro TVs, Once More

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: It’s back to the days of Sputnik and the Jetsons for a small company that makes retro televisions for people who could afford the latest in plasma-screen technology. With their funky shapes and stained-wood finishes, Predicta televisions capture the spirit of the 1950s and 1960s but use modern electronics and have color screens.
“The spirituality of the TV is what’s important,” said David Riedel, owner of Telstar Electronics, the producer of Predictas – a television that had a cult-like following in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
In the basement of his rural home, Riedel and about five employees custom-build televisions based on the original Predicta designs from Philco Co., which filed for bankruptcy protection in 1962. This month, Riedel is moving into bigger digs in the Dousman area, partly so that he has more room to work. His company builds about eight models of the Predicta, including the Pedestal version that originally had a yellow painted top and a mahogany-finish cabinet. Everything on the retro televisions is meant to be functional, rather than window dressing, including the big knobs, dials and swivel screens.
There weren’t enough of the original Predictas in circulation to restore them in meaningful numbers, so building new versions was the better choice. The new Predictas sell for between about $1,400 and $3,600. It takes at least 40 hours to build each television, and sometimes there’s a waiting list to get them.
Retro TVs, this time in color [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]