Picked up a PVM today. While it's certainly not the "grail" amongst the PVMs, it's still a nice display (to me) that's just in need of some modding.
It's a PVM-20N5E. A 20", as the model number suggests, 500 TV line display. So no thick scanlines, but having grown up with displays that mostly lacked those (my Commodore monitor for example), the look of thin scanlines is what I've grown fond of. That might make a bit of a heretic amongst CRT fetishists though
Got it from a store (well, mostly a warehouse full of vintage A/V equipment for sale online, with a lot of broadcast-grade stuff), for a lowly €35. It was untested, but I hooked up my PS1 to it and threw in a random game to give it a try.
Crappy pics aside, it has some cosmetic damage (mostly scuffs and dents in the plastic and top metal cover, as well as a missing Sony badge), but does appear to work just fine, as the tube looks to be in great shape to my eyes, quite sharp even when just testing it with a composite video signal.
The only downside is that this model lacks RGB. The slightly higher end PVM-20N6A/U/E is pretty much the exact same model, except it has RGB inputs and a mode to switch between 4:3 and letterboxed 16:9 in the menu.
Someone on the Assembler Games forum has figured out that the pads for the RGB inputs and related components are still there, they just need to be populated and the holes drilled in the case for the jacks to fit through. Some wiring needs to be done as well, along with soldering in a resistor on the main board to trick the CRT into getting it to unlock the N6 RGB and 16:9 features, and a button for the RGB line needs to be fitted on the front. It's a little bit of work, but for the price I paid, it'll be a fun project resulting in a great bang for the buck monitor that I'll be able to enjoy some games on, maybe I'll even tackle fixing the cosmetic imperfections. I just need to get a good shelve to put it on, this is one heavy monitor, and I wouldn't be surprised if modern TV shelves just aren't made to hold these bulky tubes anymore