The Philco Predicta is a television made in several cabinet models in a 17” or 21” screen by the American company Philco (Philadelphia Storage Battery Company) from 1958-1960. It was designed by Severin Jonassen and Richard Whipple and the design director was Herbert V. Gosweiler.
The Predicta was marketed as the world’s first swivel screen television. The picture tube was surrounded in Eastman plastics new product called “tenite” which protected the glass and gave it its greenish tint. The Predicta also had a thinner picture tube than many other televisions at the time, which led it to be marketed as a more futuristic television set. The futuristic aesthetic was influenced by an interest in space age technology, prompted by Russia’s Sputnik launch in 1957. Philco’s advertisements for Predicta touted a “TV Today From the World of Tomorrow!”
Predicta television sets were constructed with a variety of cabinet configurations, some detachable, but all separate from the tube itself and connected by wires. Initially introduced in 1958 for the Holiday Inn hotel chain and rolled out for general consumers shortly thereafter, the Predicta was discontinued in the early 1960s.
