

A General Electric 12" SF-series chassis set (model SF2100GY) from about 1973. As you can tell from its cosmetic appearance, it has definitely seen better days. It still works, though!

The SF chassis is a place where vacuum tubes live in peace and harmony with solid-state transistors and an integrated circuit...
The SF chassis is also amazingly compact considering about half of its functionality is tube-based.
As mentioned on The Not-A-PortaColor page, the SF chassis got a major facelift in about 1975. While I don't have a picture of one of these sets, I just noticed this item in the Spring/Summer 1975 Sears catalog: (which, by the way, appears to be the last Sears catalog having any tube-based TV sets)

I'm not entirely sure, but those two sets look veerrry familiar... If they're not re-badged GE's of the sort I'm thinking of, they're at least dead ringers for them. The description even declares the power consumption at 110 watts, which is exactly the figure indicated on the back of that grey-colored SF-chassis set pictured elsewhere on this page.
Assuming they are, I think Sears was a tad optimistic regarding the "60% solid state" claim. Plus, I'm sure they didn't take into account the fact that the tuner (which is not part of the chassis) is also tube-based.
[By the way, didja notice how the version with the simulated-walunt-grain plastic cabinet cost $10 more than the one with the plain white cabinet..? The practice of charging different prices for different cabinet colors (even if they're made out of the same materials!) for the same model used to be quite common in the radio/TV business. My theory is that this was a historical 'leftover' from back in The Old Days when Bakelite was the only plastic material usable for radio cabinets. Bakelite was always (?) dark brown or black in color. To make a radio cabinet in some other color, therefore, the radio manufacturer would have to paint the cabinet-- so naturally, the unpainted brown/black Bakelite version would be sold at a lower cost than the painted Bakelite version (if one was offered). Also, since a Bakelite cabinet was generally cheaper to make than a wooden one (and the fact that many customers preferred wood-cabineted radios), manufacturers would also charge more for an otherwise identical model if offered in a wood cabinet. Somehow, the practice just stuck around, even after newer plastics became available that could be readily produced in any color. Anyway, that's my theory.]
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