A 73-year-old television has won a nationwide search to find the country's oldest working set.
The Marconiphone TV, dating from 1936 is still in full working order. More recently it's been brought up to date with the addition of a set top box to receive the Freeview service.
The set was located as part of a competition to find the country's oldest working TV launched by Digital UK in conjunction with Iain Logie Baird, Curator of Television at the National Media Museum in Bradford and grandson of TV inventor, John Logie Baird.
The Marconiphone 702 has a 12in screen and is estimated to have been manufactured around November 1936, the same month as the regular BBC television service from Alexandra Palace was first broadcast. When new, it cost 60 Guineas—the equivalent of about £11,000 today.
Owner of the television, Jeffrey Borinsky, a consultant engineer from North London, has owned the set for ten years. He said: "I still enjoy watching my Marconiphone occasionally, especially cartoons from the 1930s, which the original owner might also have seen on the set. Converting the set to digital means I can continue to watch it for many years to come."
Jon Steel, of Digital UK, said: "We want to remind viewers that age is no barrier to getting your old TV ready for switchover. This unique example from the very earliest days of television is proof that even the oldest sets can continue to work long after analogue signals have been switched off."
Iain Logie Baird believes this is an unusual find: "A small fraction of pre-war tellies still exist—many fell into disrepair or were simply thrown out when a newer set arrived, and we know about 3,000 were lost in the London bombings. Today, most surviving pre-war sets are found in museums or in private collections. It's wonderful to find a Marconiphone 702 still in private ownership and in full working order, more than half a century after it was first manufactured."
Digital UK's search was launched in May and prompted a large number of entries from all parts of the country, including several pre-war sets.
The Marconiphone TV, dating from 1936 is still in full working order. More recently it's been brought up to date with the addition of a set top box to receive the Freeview service.
The set was located as part of a competition to find the country's oldest working TV launched by Digital UK in conjunction with Iain Logie Baird, Curator of Television at the National Media Museum in Bradford and grandson of TV inventor, John Logie Baird.
The Marconiphone 702 has a 12in screen and is estimated to have been manufactured around November 1936, the same month as the regular BBC television service from Alexandra Palace was first broadcast. When new, it cost 60 Guineas—the equivalent of about £11,000 today.
Owner of the television, Jeffrey Borinsky, a consultant engineer from North London, has owned the set for ten years. He said: "I still enjoy watching my Marconiphone occasionally, especially cartoons from the 1930s, which the original owner might also have seen on the set. Converting the set to digital means I can continue to watch it for many years to come."
Jon Steel, of Digital UK, said: "We want to remind viewers that age is no barrier to getting your old TV ready for switchover. This unique example from the very earliest days of television is proof that even the oldest sets can continue to work long after analogue signals have been switched off."
Iain Logie Baird believes this is an unusual find: "A small fraction of pre-war tellies still exist—many fell into disrepair or were simply thrown out when a newer set arrived, and we know about 3,000 were lost in the London bombings. Today, most surviving pre-war sets are found in museums or in private collections. It's wonderful to find a Marconiphone 702 still in private ownership and in full working order, more than half a century after it was first manufactured."
Digital UK's search was launched in May and prompted a large number of entries from all parts of the country, including several pre-war sets.
