I was in high school when my father had a television and appliance shop in a small town South of Chicago where he sold Philco products as well as others.  I remember going with him to the showing of the Predicta line.  He hated it and I liked it. He wasn’t going to purchase any as samples, but did reluctantly at my urging. We bought the two part one with a cable connecting the two parts and the table model.  We didn't get one like yours. I remember putting one in the show room and one in the middle of the front display window.  They got a lot of interest and ridicule, but we were never able to sell them.  Years later we finally sold the two piece one for almost nothing to somebody who just thought it was funny.  He probably hauled the other to the dump as it was a big embarrassment to him.  Naturally I took a lot of heat for my advice.

At the introductory showing of the line, Philco was showing but not selling a color model.  They didn't think that it would ever be successful and were sticking with black and white. I think that was probably the last year for us selling Philco electronics but we still sold their appliances as I remember.  Of course that was the same time that color television market really took off.

By then Philco couldn't catch up and had lost so much with the Predicta flop. I remember the distributor sending out closeout sheets and cheaper and cheaper prices for a long time after the line was dropped.  Philco became the laughing stock, when before everyone would be waiting to see what their "Miss America" model would be like this year so everyone could copy it.  By then anything would be too little too late.  We had been selling RCA color sets since l956 and that was the way the industry went from them on.

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