View Full Version : Predicta Holiday trash find!!


captainmoody
06-05-2006, 06:16 PM
I found this today in Warren while visiting a friend! The people were taking this to the curb as we drove by.
The man and his son were still holding it and ready to set it down when I stopped the car!
When asked what he was going to do with it he said "you want it" when I replied "yes!" he told me to open the trunk as it was "getting heavy" Never before have I intercepted trash before it was set on the curb!
I even got the story on this one, It sat on the bar in their basement as a decoration for the past 10 years.
They decided to redecorate and toss the bar, stools, panelling, some furniture and the tv!
When I asked him how he got it he told me from a flea market. After powering it up I found it to be operational even! Looks like someone did some work to get it going though as there are a bunch of mylars in there now.
It's really hard to believe someone would just toss something as nice as this! I was just getting ready to purchase one of these that needed work from a friend, not now though, as I have a free keeper!

Carmine
06-05-2006, 06:51 PM
You better buy a Lotto ticket tonight! What's next, people selling Hemi 'cudas because gas is expensive!?

Just curious... Where in Warren?

captainmoody
06-05-2006, 07:00 PM
I found it at Common road and Schoenherr Carmine. Oddly enough, two blocks over is where I found that CTC5 two years ago.

azguy1878
06-05-2006, 08:51 PM
this kind of makes you wonder how many sets like this are thrown out everyday that are never rescued??? I have that same exact set in blonde finish, but mine doesnt work.

Adam
06-05-2006, 09:19 PM
That's got to be one of the best trash finds of all time. I wonder why there seem to be so many better trash finds up in that part of the country, than down here in Southern CA. In four years of living down here, I really only found one good set curbside.

Eric H
06-05-2006, 09:20 PM
Unfreaking believable!
People throwing out stuff like that makes me shudder!

Anyway, great catch Capt!!

kx250rider
06-06-2006, 12:12 AM
That's got to be one of the best trash finds of all time. I wonder why there seem to be so many better trash finds up in that part of the country, than down here in Southern CA. In four years of living down here, I really only found one good set curbside.


I'll give you a tip, Adam.... You aren't too far from what is alleged to be the most fruitful vintage-TV-in-the-trash area in the state, as told to me by a Los Angeles City trash truck driver and several other vintage TV guys. I am not making this up; this is supposed to be a "fact": I personally have picked up several nice 50s TVs at this place, and have heard of many other finds including a mint-condition 3" Pilot in the case!

WOODLAND HILLS! Specifically, the small houses between Hwy 101 on the North, and Dumetz on the South. Between about Taft High School and the Calabasas city limit. No guarantees of course, but if you're headed that way, just get off the freeway and cruise through there on trash day. I have always wondered "WHY" that area.

I have cruised the trash in every suburb of Los Angeles from the most expensive parts of Beverly Hills to the poorest parts of Pacoima. You find 1988 RCAs in Beverly Hills, 1998 Zeniths in Pacoima, once I found a 10" Hoffman in West LA. Maybe a cracked plasma set shows up in Marina Del Rey. But Woodland Hills just seems to be the TV collectors' wonderland!

Charles

RetroHacker
06-06-2006, 05:50 AM
Wow! Great find - I really can't believe the things people throw away. I can understand people tossing a lot of sets, because very few people realize that anyone collects them. But the Predicta is one of the most recogniseable old TV sets and even people that don't know squat about TV's think that a Predicta is worth a lot - which is why they go for so much on eBay. But wow, that was great luck! Keep us posted, and let us know when you find the body of Jimmy Hoffa at the curb.

-Ian

captainmoody
06-06-2006, 06:39 AM
The area that the Predicta and the CTC5(from 2 years ago) came from is becoming mostly young families now, both items came from 30-something couples that could care less about historic value!
They only bought these sets as "decoration" and when the trend was no longer "in" for them, out go the sets to the curb!

jpdylon
06-06-2006, 10:27 AM
incredible. WHat a sweet find, and Free to boot!

veg-o-matic
06-06-2006, 10:34 AM
Cap'n, I envy your "VideoKarma"!

Congrats!

veg

Manitoulin
06-06-2006, 10:54 AM
Great story captain.

What are the odds, an enthusiast like you just happens to be in the right place, at the right time?

It's karma, for sure.

captainmoody
06-06-2006, 11:22 AM
Probably just plain old luck, plus I know that area is good for neat finds like tv's nearly new lawnmowers and such.
My son found two advent speakers (the early ones from '74) and a Dual 1214 turntable as well as a Sony stereo from the same era. He found all of them by his friends house near there as well.
Once I refoam the woofs he will have a great starter system.
Most of the time I find nothing! It seems to be feast and famine for me...

Phil Nelson
06-06-2006, 12:22 PM
An incredible score.

Around here (near Seattle), it's illegal to throw TVs in the garbage. You have to drop them off at a hazardous waste station and pay a $25 recycling fee.

captainmoody
06-06-2006, 01:25 PM
25 bucks!! sheesh...
I hope things don't get that way here, there is no way I could afford that with the dozens of newer parts sets I toss every year.

gonzothegreat
06-06-2006, 11:37 PM
Madison, WI recently enacted the $25 disposal fee and by doing so wrecked my TV curbshopping hobby (although my $150 working 42" plasma made up for a long drought). The local TV repair shop that used to drop all their abandonded sets on the curb now probably does like my uncle and smashes the sets into tiny pieces and does a midnight dump at a friend's apartment. Illegal as hell though.

Carmine
06-07-2006, 08:59 AM
The local TV repair shop that used to drop all their abandonded sets on the curb now probably does like my uncle and smashes the sets into tiny pieces and does a midnight dump at a friend's apartment.

This is what usually happens when these types of laws get passed. Follow the money... I'll bet part of that $25 fee goes to the government, and a larger portion goes to whatever Mob-owned garbage company picks up the trash. This is the great scam of recycling... Most of these contractors are allowed to add the "recycled" items to the regular wastestream if the market prices of plastic/paper/glass/tin/etc. will not allow the recycler to make a profit.

Now the justification for these laws, as they relate to TVs, is the lead contained in the glass. Somebody educate me how the lead leaves the glass and enters the groundwater? I hope your explaination is good, because turning nuclear waste into glass is the process used to make it "safe". If the lead was contained in the wood, capacitors, or even as an alloy in the steel, you could make a case. Thousands of years from now, glass will still be glass... It doesn't breakdown.

..And since we are talking about Detroit-area trash, I might add that although I can think of no other place in the world with a higher concentration of heavy manufacturing, refining, forging, smelting, etc., we have some of the best tap-water quality in the nation.

This is non-sence, and I wouldn't feel a moments guilt tossing a TV in the trash... At least a new one!

andy
06-07-2006, 02:11 PM
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andy
06-07-2006, 02:19 PM
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