In article pBlve.5142$dY1.3431@trnddc06,
"James Sweet" wrote:

One time we were sending a bunch of CRT's back to the manufacturer for
proof-of- replacement one time, and my wife was labelling them. She
was wearing a knitted sweater, and the sleeve brushed against the 2nd
anode. She wasn't pleased with the result. The CRT had been sitting
for weeks to months...

Tom

A CRT that's not connected to the HV lead won't have any path to ground to
bleed the charge off, it'll pick up static from the air over time.

The issue with CRTs is that the glass dielectric, having been kept at
many tens of kilovolts for years, will store charge deep in the glass,
and this charge cannot be eliminated quickly. The phenomena is called
"dielectric adsorption" or "soakage". One can short such a CRT for a
week, remove the short, and see the voltage magically spring back. So
leave it shorted.

Big capacitors can do this as well, especially the big oil-paper
capacitors used in HV power supplies. These can store a lethal jolt.

This same phenomena is used in Electret microphones, where a thin layer
of teflon stores the HV charge needed to make the microphone work.

Joe Gwinn