Oldest colour TV set to go on display for first time

The world’s oldest colour TV is to go on show for the first time.

The National Museum of Scotland bought the set in 2001 but it was among thousands of objects which remained in storage due to lack of space at the Edinburgh museum. Around 8,000 items will now go on display, 80 per centof them for the first time, following a £46.4 million redevelopment project.

Scottish inventor John Logie Baird, who is credited as the first man to televise pictures of objects in motion, demonstrated colour TV in 1928.

Objects on show when the museum reopens its doors, after three years on July 29, include Scottish bacteriologist Sir Alexander Fleming’s Nobel Prize gold medal for the discovery of penicillin, and specimens collected by Charles Darwin.

Darwin left several items to Edinburgh University from his voyage aboard HMS Beagle. A 12,300-year-old giant deer skeleton discovered in 1819 and the jaws of a sperm whale inscribed with scrimshaw carving will be shown in the galleries. National Museums Scotland director Gordon Rintoul said: “This great museum, with its amazing collection of treasures, spans over five billion years and every corner of the globe. “The restoration of the magnificent Victorian architecture and the display of many previously unseen objects represents a once-in-a-lifetime transformation of the museum, which will ensure that it continues to inspire, inform and entertain visitors for generations to come.”