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  #16  
Old 06-27-2002, 09:49 PM
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jshorva65 jshorva65 is offline
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RCA 721TS

Dear Rob,

Yes, this one set will pay most of the bills here for the month. I also received a phone call yesterday from someone in Oklahoma who will be paying to have his RCA 8-T-241 professionally packed, shipped to me, restored by me, re-packed and shipped back. Why? Because he has owned the set (in working order) for years until just recently when the tuner was damaged by a visiting grandchild. He removed the tuner and had it professionally rebuilt. He thinks he may have reinstalled it incorrectly since he reinstalled it himself and is not experienced with electronics. The set also was working with all of its original paper capacitors unreplaced when it worked. I plan to evaluate the condition of the set and either confirm or disprove the customer's suspicion that the paper capacitors may finally need replaced and then, if necessary, relace them. My own suspicion is that the rebuilt tuner, now properly aligned by the rebuilder, may be producing an IF for which the chassis is no longer properly aligned. Armed with sweep and marker generators and a frequency counter, I plan to do RF sweeps on each channel, verifying that the tuner is set up to produce the correct response curve, check the response curve of the IF amplifiers, and then likewise align the set's IF amplifiers back to factory specifications if my suspicions prove to be true.

Incidentally, I also kept my Crosley 9-408 for a second reason besides the fact that it is less common than the similar RCA 630TS. My Crosley set appears to have been kept in a climate-controlled environment for many years and cared for very well. Although both sets are complete and the finishes are almost equally nice on both the RCA 721TS and the Crosley 9-408, you'll notice that the Crosley's finish looks almost like it would have looked when it was new while the RCA's has dulled just slightly from age. The Crosley also works as well as it does and produces all the correct waveforms and response sweeps flawlessly without the need for replacement of even one of its original paper capacitors. The set is powered up weekly, always with a Variac, protected by a 2.5-amp fuse, displayed in a room that's climate-controlled between 65 and 85 degrees and never left unattended with power aqpplied. If any capacitor does eventually fail, I'll replace them all.

John
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  #17  
Old 06-27-2002, 09:57 PM
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Kamakiri Kamakiri is offline
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And you guys guessed it, I'm the mutual friend!

You guys have more sets in common than you realize.
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  #18  
Old 06-27-2002, 10:33 PM
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Eric H Eric H is offline
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Wink

John, I was stunned to see wat the 721 is going for!

about 5 years ago I sold a 721, 830 and another 48 RCA for $200
that's $200 for all three!!

Someone please shoot me now <LOL>


Eric
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  #19  
Old 06-27-2002, 10:36 PM
Rob Rob is offline
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Chuck,

Are you the one that scored one of these N.I.B. recently? Totally awesome set!

I've got three Zenith Portholes now, a Raytheon 12" Porthole, and a Teletone 209 suitcase 7" porthole that also qualify as 'round'. I just scored my latest Zenith, a 12" with doors last weekend. These true portholes are soooo cool!

Here's a picture of the new one and the 16" I had before to it's left. Both have identical cabinets and identical patterned doors.

Rob

Last edited by Rob; 07-06-2002 at 04:38 PM.
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  #20  
Old 06-28-2002, 07:37 AM
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ChuckA ChuckA is offline
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Rob,

Yes, that's the NIB Stromberg. Your right, the porthole style is pretty slick to showoff. So far I haven't found another, just a couple more projection sets.

Chuck
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  #21  
Old 06-28-2002, 08:23 AM
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jshorva65 jshorva65 is offline
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RCA 721TS

Dear Rob,

I suspect that the presence of Channel 1 on the dial may be part of the reason my set is going for over $1,000. My GE 800C only went for $249 although it's nearly impossible to find those locomotive-style Bakelite cabinets in good condition. Virtually every one of them that I've seen except that one has at least had one crack somewhere. Many that I've seen had most or all of the top grille smashed out. I really think that Channel 1 is the attraction.

John
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  #22  
Old 06-28-2002, 08:31 AM
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Kamakiri Kamakiri is offline
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Wholly geez!

Makes me wish I'd have held on to more of my collection! But then again, most of the good stuff went to Rob, so at least it's all loved
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  #23  
Old 06-28-2002, 09:09 AM
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jshorva65 jshorva65 is offline
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1940's 10" sets

Many of the 10" sets made prior to 1949 are likely to have Channel 1. I just count the positions in the photos that are posted on eBay and I'm almost always right about which ones do have Channel 1 vs which ones don't. I just bought an RCA 630TS for $150 that has Channel 1. Buy-It-Now wasn't originally an option, but I convinced the seller to sell it to me for $150 with Buy-It-Now since the set was listed in Collector's Guide to Vintage Television as having an average unrestored value of $175, was missing a knob and needed a small piece of veneer fixed on the front. It's going to cost me quite a bit to have the set professionally disassembled and packed since the seller didn't want to attempt it himself. I'll also have some money involved in the veneer repair. I bought a complete set of knobs for the 630TS on eBay recently so I have the replacement knob on hand. I even have a spare 10BP4 (had two, but used one of them) and saved a dud to have rebuilt if necessary. What I don't have but hope to find are replacements for a missing HV cage, back cover and 2 knobs for my Fada TV30 (also a Channel 1 set). The cage and back shouldn't be hard to find as they're pretty much identical for the 630TS and all its clones. The knobs, however, are going to be harder to find because, although any 630-clone knobs will fit the shafts, the Fada knobs are cosmetically different.

John
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  #24  
Old 06-28-2002, 03:26 PM
Marlin Mackley Marlin Mackley is offline
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Round is good. Round is cool. Check out this partially restored '48 Zenith 12".
Pardon the bad exposure, the flash washes out the picture. I found it in a small town antique mall trying to work but looking funny. I talked them down to $150, hauled it home, parked it on the bench, and proceeded to hand wind a power choke. 2000 turns of #32 wire. I thought I was going to choke! A couple of caps, two good 5U4's and a few other tubes and this is what I got. Still needs recapping but I hafta make a living sometime.....
Marlin
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  #25  
Old 06-29-2002, 08:16 PM
Marlin Mackley Marlin Mackley is offline
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Hey folks: Anybody else watchin' the GE mirror in lid set on ebay? It ends tomorrow evening and already is at $7500.00+! Auction #2115928008. Sure wish I was rich!
Here is a photo I lifted from the ebay auction.
Marlin

Moderator's Note: That auction has closed and the set sold for $12,300.01. See http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=2115928008

Last edited by Rob; 07-06-2002 at 12:09 PM.
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  #26  
Old 06-29-2002, 08:46 PM
Rob Rob is offline
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I saw it the moment it was posted and have been following it with interest. Nowadays, generally only well funded museums or wealthy collectors can afford to obtain historically significant gems like this. Thirty years ago you could still trip over this sort of thing at a yard or estate sale and have it for a working man's pay. Not any more.

Rob
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  #27  
Old 06-29-2002, 09:55 PM
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jshorva65 jshorva65 is offline
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Many of these gems were actually DELIBERATELY DESTROYED years ago because they were considered DANGEROUS. For those who don't know the background, pulse and rf supplies for high voltage were not developed until after the war. These pre-war sets used a second power transformer and usually a 2X2 rectifier with much larger filer capacitors to develop the 7.5kV second-anode voltage. These supplies were not energy-limited like the more modern flyback-pulse or rf oscillator supplies. These old supplies could easily continue producing high voltage at sufficient current to kill while loaded with body resistance. Body resistance normally presents such a heavy load on rf and flyback circuits to limit the output current to a level that will produce little more than a very unpleasant shock to a healthy adult. A picture tube only draws about 1mA of beam current from the hv supply. Pulse and rf supplies normally have high impedances which tend to limit their output current. I still wouldn't recommend touching the hv circuits of a flyback or rf supply with power on and also recommend discharging the filter capacitor(s) before working on them.

When restoring one of these pre-war gems, use extreme caution around the high-voltage supplies, never work near them with power applied and always discharge the filter before working on the hv circuitry.

John
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  #28  
Old 07-01-2002, 01:14 AM
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Steve Hoffman Steve Hoffman is offline
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Here is my Stromberg Carlson. My next door neighbor gave this one to me about five years ago...
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  #29  
Old 07-03-2002, 09:12 PM
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My old BW sets

Here's my limited collection of old BW sets. See my post in color sets for explanation for lack of pics.

1. Stewart Warner 12" round. Made in 1949. I can get a picture, but I also got this set prior to learning that recapping is a good thing. Once recapped, this set will look really nice. The strips in the tuner are not all there, but I still can get it to work on cable. This one is a tabletop.

2. Zenith 21" made about 1958. Here's a good worker. Nothing special about this VHF only metal tabletop. A set similat to it is pictured in the AS THE WORLD TURNS book published in 1996. The child pictured would eventually become one of ATWT's executive producers. I'll eventually scan the photo and picture of the set. This one will eventually get a full recap, but it works after replacing some caps in the vertical and correcting other "repairs" done before I had the set.

I am always looking for old sets, but I'm not sure when "primetime at curbside" here is.
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  #30  
Old 07-06-2002, 08:57 AM
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Unimatic1140 Unimatic1140 is offline
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Here is my Bakelite Admiral just after the restoration was finished playing a 1949 commercial for Joy dishwashing liquid when the set was barely 1 year old...
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