Quote:
Originally Posted by jstout66
I own a handful of Zenith sets, and I'll swap em out once in awhile, but I think my favorite one that gets a ton of use is this 1981 System 3. It's a 19", has a wood cabinet, and it's the model with built-in space phone. Picture on the set is better than what my camera shows.
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Zenith TVs were always good, until the company sold out to LG in the late '80s-nineties. I think my "Insignia" brand (Best Buy house brand) flat screen TV may have an LG-built chassis, as I understand most Insignia sets are manufactured with mostly LG parts.
However, your Zenith System 3 set from '81 looks great. One of my great-aunts had a Zenith console in the late '80s with Space Phone, but she never used that feature. I don't know what happened to the TV after she passed in the early '90s
-- maybe one of the other relatives has it now.
That your System 3 set has lasted 31 years and is still going strong speaks volumes for the way Zenith TVs were built before LG got hold of the company. I had a Zenith 12" b&w solid-state portable I bought in 1978 that was still working extremely well 22 years later; I had no repairs done on that set, and when I got rid of it (I moved in '99 and didn't have room for the TV in my then-new apartment, not with my two other color sets I brought with me) even the CRT was very strong, almost like new. That set got a lot of use at my former home as well, so I was very surprised and pleased that the tube worked as well as it did after all those years.
I'd hold on to that System 3 set if it works so well. They don't make them like that anymore, and of course Zenith no longer exists as a TV manufacturer. The Zenith name and the trademark lightning-bolt "Z" symbol on today's sets bearing that name are only marketing symbols with no connection whatsoever to the former Zenith Radio Corporation of Chicago. A darn shame, as Zenith used to make some of the best TVs around, and in fact Zenith was my favorite brand of TV for decades; I had two Zenith 13" color portables in the late '70s and eighties, and still have my 19" Sentry 2, but since getting the flat panel last year the latter doesn't get much use anymore. The last time I tried it, however, it was working as well as the day I got it as a birthday present in 1995. Yes, this was within the time frame during which Zenith CRTs were prone to early failure, but I must have been lucky to get a set with a good tube. My set has never had one bit of work done on it to date, and still has the original CRT.
