I remember going with my Dad to some kind of store back in the 50s to test the tubes from the tv. It might have been a drug store.
I recall going to a vacuum tube test station in the local Dart Drug with my father in the late 60’s or early 70’s. Wish I could find one now for my old 1930’s radio.
When we first got married, we bought a nonfunctional TV for $6. I pulled all the small tubes out of the back, went to the drug store with a tube tester, found the three bad tubes, spent another $5 or $6 and ended up with a good TV set.
This was in early 1971!
It seemed as if every larger grocery store and hardware store had one. I remember those, too.