I just purchased three mid 60's Zenith roundie consoles from a 92 year old gentleman.

All of the sets are pretty much complete, though one of the cabinets (the set in the middle) is a little rough. Two are the same chassis (24NC31) from 1967 (I think) and one is a 25MC33 from 1965. The CRT in the colonial set has the CRT socket cap missing, though the wires are still nice and long, and it has the high voltage cage cover missing. Otherwise, all three chassis look excellent. Picking these up was a five hour round trip to southeastern Arizona.

Yew Lucky Dawg ! Ah HATE Yew....-Yosemite Sam, Esq. Seriously, EXCELLENT score !

Deep down inside, we all HATE YEW!!!

BUT

Congratulations on this haul!

Bruce

Zenith are stellar performers, would like to find one.
The '65 one matches the "Clayton" on brochure

Wow sweet!
Not even any cataract to deal with. Hope the crts have good emission.
IMO RCA has much better color performance but these sets are superior when it comes to the flyback and chassis construction. They probably need hardly anything to get them going. All my Zeniths from that eria have the original caps in them. Zenith used some quality parts when they built those sets.

Nice score! 2 have slight cataracts but I would leave them alone since they are a pain in Zenith's to remove. Looks like the third one does not have the safety glass on the CRT. JMHO. We all are a little jealous.

I'm surprised that you think that Zenith cateracts are a pain to remove. I just warmed mine in the sun and dragged a wire through the glue....After a slow start I got the hang of it quickly and it was easy then on. The only thing that I found annoying was that the center of the glue on two of the three tubes I did was hard and didn't want to come off.

I did three tubes an older roundy which did not give me any troubles peeling off the thick layer of glue, a 1967 vintage rectangular that had about a 2X6" patch of stubborn glue, and a 1971 23V CRT that had a 17" diagonal rectangle of stubborn glue.

The roundy, after peeling off the thick layer by hand, was a snap. All else I had to do was poor some Goof Off (this stuff does a REALLY good job breaking down Zenith type PVA even the little balls that the hand peel off missed) on it and rub down with paper towels 2-3 times before the final Windex rubdown for a mirror shine.

The rectangulars with stubborn glue on the safety glass I poured Goof off so that it pooled over the PVA and let it sit to soften it I then ground away at it my finger nails (not all that fun) untill the primary layer was gone. Resoaking it each time grinding became less managable. This was a bit annoying on the 67', and very annoying on the 71'. I could have skipped all that grinding by not reusing the removed safety glass if I wanted, but I chose to continue using the glass.

What was you experience, and why did it sour you?

:drool: :drool: :drool: :drool: :drool: :drool: :drool: :drool: :drool: :drool:


Me likey! Wish I had room for even one of these, but I guess I have to settle on my RCA B&W console with the weak CRT.

Oh the memories...
At least one among us is starting off the New Year on the right foot.
Congrats!

What a great find--3 at once!You can swap tubes back and forth as needed for
easy diagnosis.

I also have an RCA CTC16X that I scored on CL a couple of months ago. I like the roundies.....

[QUOTE=Electronic M;3022916]I'm surprised that you think that Zenith cateracts are a pain to remove. I just warmed mine in the sun and dragged a wire through the glue....After a slow start I got the hang of it quickly and it was easy then on. The only thing that I found annoying was that the center of the glue on two of the three tubes I did was hard and didn't want to come off.

Compared to RCA tubes they are. I did a 22" rectangular one. It's like sticky buger goo and has a nasty smell. It sticks to everything. Of course I did it inside and the warm sun was no longer available. It's not the PVA RCA uses. The RCA's peel off quite nicely and have the smell of new vinyl. Yum

I did a RCA 22JP22 and it ended up destroyed....I ended up cracking the safety glass which was taking too long for an impatient teenager cooking alive outside on the hottest week of summer, and having a big non-removable patch in the center. I then tried chipping away at the patch, and got sick of all the glass chips landing on me, almost getting in my eyes, and sometimes cutting me so I decided to drop it back in the cool tub that was sitting in shade and let the water remove the cateract.....well the tube had not cooled yet, and almost imploded a minute after I put it in (when you are staving off heat-stroke your judgement becomes VERY poor, ask NASA).

After that fiasco and dozens of weak snapped copper and current brittle steel wire...when I finally got my first successful cateract removal on a Zenith tube done there was a tremendous amount of viceral satisfaction in muscling the wire through that gunk.
I have to agree that the RCA stuff is easier to cleanup.
I think that the Zenith gunk smells like a really pungent new inflatable pool toy.

Holy smokes!!!- My aunt and uncle, now gone had a 24NC31 Zenith with the Danish legs and walnut. Id take IT in a minute at your modest sum, but look where I am?!? :sigh:

I DO have the EA version like yours, and a spare cabinet for one and somebody here wants it to match a decor.:thmbsp:

Zenith are stellar performers, would like to find one.
The '65 one matches the "Clayton" on brochure

The one in the middle looks exactly like my 1965 "Ashby" model except the bottom front arch between the front legs is missing. If that 25MC33 should end up parted out I could use a few pieces to give mine an overhaul.

Great sets though. Nothing beats a Zenith roundie unless it's three Zenith roundies.

Nice little collection. I don't think those are your typical FJ style cataracts forming. I believe what we're seeing is the rubber gasket from a FB sytle CRT out gassing between the two glass surfaces.