Dinah Shore With The Colonial Theater’s RCA TK40s…1957

Dinah Shore With The Colonial Theater’s RCA TK40s…1957

Continuing on the theme from the previous post of Peter Katz photo from The Colonial Theater, here is Dinah Shore with these rare cameras.

Notice the first camera we see had no vents on the viewfinder. This was how the first RCA TK40s were made. The four TK40s at The Colonial were the prototypes and these four were built in the fall of 1952. No more were made until RCA started the production line in late 1953 and even then, they only made 20 TK40s before switching to the TK41 in early 1954.

When they began building the TK41s, they added vents to the viewfinder enclosure and to the door over the high voltage box and sent out these modified pieces to The Colonial, KNBC in LA, WRC in Washington and WNBQ in Chicago. For some reason, one of the TK40s at the Colonial was never updated, but the others were. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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