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Old 04-04-2011, 09:24 AM
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Carmine Carmine is offline
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Getting even with Craigslister "taking bids".

Ever wish you could get even with some tool using Craigslist to stir up a bidding war? This type of seller basically wastes your time, quizzing you to get a handle on an item's value?

Our story begins with a Zenith roundie listed in the Detroit area under the heading "1950s Zenith color TV". I click on the ad, with dreams of a 15" prototype in my head, and from the pictures I ascertain the following information:
1) It probably a 1st-gen 29JC20 chassis because the back appears to have even-more-than usual venting, made of metal, in the high-voltage (right) side of the chassis.

2) It's at least a power-tuning model, probably Space-Command because there are no VHF tuning knobs, only buttons.

3) It does have UHF.

4) Has dual speakers.

5) It's in a very unusual BLONDE cabinet, which probably gave the lunkhead seller the idea it came from the early/mid 50s.

6) It looks like it's in EXCELLENT cosmetic condition.
His asking price is $99. On the downside, he's located on the very western outskirts of metro Detroit, about 40 miles from me. However, I'd go much further than that for such a set. His phone number is in the ad, so I wait until a decent hour last Thursday and give him a call in the morning.

I tell him that I'd like to buy the set, and his pictures were so good that I'm sure of the purchase. When could he see me? He says the same day is busy, and Friday would be tough. That's fine I say, because I actually have business on that end of town Saturday afternoon. I propose that if he holds the set, I'll pay him an extra $25. (I didn't want to go crazy with extra cash because I could already tell he was testing how much I'd pay.) I said look at it this way... If I show on Saturday, you get an extra $25. If I don't, you're still in the same spot you are now, and you can put it right back on Craigslist. I also had the strong feeling he'd try to raise the price if I jumped too quickly. (What do you think this set is worth? I have another old set... What is that one worth, etc.) He gladly agrees to my offer of additional cash.

Late on Thursday afternoon he sends this email:

Quote:
I've attached some photo's of another T V I have for sale. This T V was purchased in Oct. 1950, I have the original bill of sale. It's a Black and White.

Unfortunately I had someone out to the storage unit to look at something else and they saw the Zenith T V and offered me $200 on the spot. I've sold enough stuff to know that a bird in the hand is worth more than 10 in the bush. Sorry I sold it but I couldn't pass up the deal. If you think you might be interested in this one please let me know. Thanks again for calling!
Well thanks a lot you SOB, you're quite a man of your word. I've already made arrangements to borrow a friend's SUV (I have a truck, but we were expecting rain and a 1-ton truck suspension wouldn't do that TV many favors.) Thanks again for wasting my time.

But even more than that, you've got the balls to still try and peddle your common-as-dirt 50s B&W set to me? What to do... Naturally, the thing to do is buy the B&W set, right? So I ask him for a price in the remaining set, and this is the response:

Quote:
Looking on E-bay at similar items, not the same I'm thinking I'd like to get around $175. I'm not firm on that though. I think I'll put it on Craigs list and see what kind of response I get. If you think your interested I can hold off on the Craigs list thing???????????
Not wanting to be too obvious, I send this email in reply on Friday morning:

Quote:
I think $100 is probably more fair for an untested set. If the set produces light on the screen (even just a narrow horizontal line), it validates the picture tube and will increase the value dramatically. Try to take a photo at this stage. Turning the brightness up all the way might help widen the picture.

Remember that the old vacuum tubes will take quite a while to re-awaken, so it might take 10-20 minutes to restart them after decades of disuse. Don't be too concerned with anything that smells/smokes... The dust often burns off the hot vacuum tubes and smells like a furnace in the fall.

Let me know the results and perhaps we can still make a deal on Saturday.


I pretty much blow it off at this stage, but on Saturday morning I get a phone call... When was I coming out? So I ask when he's available. He says how about 4 PM? Hmmm.... Sorry, that's too late. The best I could do is 2 PM.

Then he grumbles a bit about having to stop cleaning out his mother's house (which is where I'm sure this stuff is coming from), but he'll "go out of his way" and be there at 2 PM.

Two-o'clock comes and my phone rings. Where am I? I make some excuses about confusing the address, but I just need to turn around... Could he go in front of the storage place and flag me down? I'm driving a minivan.

Now I get the mental image of this jackass waving at every minivan he sees, and tons of people thinking, "Who is this nutjob?"

After about 10 minutes, I figure he's suffered enough. So I call him back and say, "I think I changed my mind... I don't want an old TV anymore." He is stunned, and says, "You drove all the way out here and changed your mind!?"

Then in my most maniacal laugh, I say "buddy, I never left my house" and hang-up.
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Old 04-04-2011, 09:30 AM
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Carmine Carmine is offline
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I will add that I'm a little concerned that he sold the TV to someone who came to look at another item. My guess it that it was probably some "Eames-era" furniture thing, and some antique shop guy bought it simply because it was a piece of blonde furniture and would thus make an excellent fishtank.

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Old 04-04-2011, 11:34 AM
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sampson159 sampson159 is offline
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i guess you really put him through it!i would never have offered more than he was asking for any reason.they "smell" your want and lust.then a new personality takes over.this has happened to many of us and is part of the hobby.i think as a rule,first come,first serve,i know it sounds harsh,but i live by this myself.if there is a deposit,thats much different.
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Old 04-04-2011, 12:14 PM
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Carmine Carmine is offline
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I can't argue with first-come, first-serve. If the guy had said that, or that I could come see it that day, I would have gone.

In the back of my mind, I knew I was leaving myself at the mercy of his "word".

But then again, it's not as if this TV is the organ transplant I needed to live.
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Old 04-04-2011, 12:28 PM
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The opposite happens too. I've tried to sell stuff on cl where people will email me tons of questions about the unit, say they're going to show up, I wait around for them, and they never do. For some reason, when I was selling a set of stereo speakers a while ago they seemed to bring out all these sort of clowns more than usual.
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Old 04-04-2011, 04:32 PM
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rca2000 rca2000 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
[INDENT
1) It probably a 1st-gen 29JC20 chassis because the back appears to have even-more-than usual venting, made of metal, in the high-voltage (right) side of the chassis.

2) It's at least a power-tuning model, probably Space-Command because there are no VHF tuning knobs, only buttons.

3) It does have UHF.

4) Has dual speakers.

5) It's in a very unusual BLONDE cabinet, which probably gave the lunkhead seller the idea it came from the early/mid 50s.

6) It looks like it's in EXCELLENT cosmetic condition. [/INDENT]














NOT a 29JC20 set. I have one. The back cover is all fiber, and does not really have more than the "normal" amount of venting. The bottom of the cabinet DOES have an opening where the HV cage is, but so do the KC,LC and MC roundies.

Sorry to hear about your "ordeal", as I have "been there...dome that" a number of times, notably one a CTC-10 last year and a Direct Address RCA set too. It is just TOO DAMN bad--that people can't "keep their word".
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Old 04-05-2011, 06:50 AM
jstout66 jstout66 is offline
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Ya... Sucks, but at least he emailed before you drove out there. I've dealt with quite a few odd ones buying/selling on CL. One story comes to mind. I keep looking for a decent 1950's couch. I saw one listed and the pix looked pretty good. I show up to purchase it and no-one home. I wait a bit and a car pulls in behind me. Thinking it's the seller, I get out and this older lady gets out. She thinks I'm the seller. Turns out she was there to buy it as well. We both wait a bit and she decides to leave. I'm about ready to leave and the seller does show up. He's weird, and the couch, along with most of the other stuff he has is grimey. I'm just trying to figure out a polite way to LEAVE. He goes on about having a buyer that called first (which he made no mention of when I called) and he gets agitated and keeps pacing and going into another room (I suppose to try and call her) He acts like he's on meth, and I'm getting more nervous (the neighborhood is sketchy) so I tell him I'm gonna bail and to just sell it to her when she shows up. I was pissed he called both of us, so I make no mention that she was already there. After I left he kept trying to call me thruout the day. I just didn't answer. I hope he got stuck with it!
I also have this other flake that had emailed on an item I was selling. She never got back to me and I sold it to another buyer. About 3 weeks later I get a ton of emails from her thruout the day stating she can come get it now, and had the nerve to get pissy when I told her it was gone. I mean really????? I remove all my posts once I sell something, so 3 weeks after the fact surprised me.

Last edited by jstout66; 04-05-2011 at 06:52 AM. Reason: spelling error
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Old 04-05-2011, 11:40 AM
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drh4683 drh4683 is offline
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Thats a really unfortunate situation Chris. Im glad you at least got the guy back! Is the ad still available with pictures? Im curious what it looked like it could help me identify the model. The 29JC20 that I had was an all fiber back too. The only metal part that I knew of was the CRT cup on back but who knows if there were differences in the different models. I do know the 29JC was optioned with space command and would have had the push buttons like any other space command but don't know what to tell you on the UHF tuner. It could have been a factory add on? I know my '63 Zenith chinese cabinet set has the optional little UHF tuner that mounts in the speaker grill area.
I've been screwed on craigslist too. I called up on a zenith stereo that looked really nice in the pictures last year. The lady i talked to said sure come check it out. When I got to the house, the lady opens the door and askes who I am. I tell her Im here for the stereo. She looks at me and goes "Oh my god, I forgot, we actually sold it yesterday". I said "we talked an hour ago and you said its still here". She said she forgot she sold it and had a mind blank. Yeah right, what a bunch of bs.
You meet some of the most whacked out people on craigslist. Sadly, it seems to be a good cross section of seeing what America has turned into...

But back to the topic, I'd be curious what this TV looked like at least. It sounded very interesting. Might be better off if I don't see it though if you know what I mean...
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Old 04-05-2011, 10:25 PM
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bgadow bgadow is offline
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Among my CL experiences: my wife had a large area rug that she wanted to sell for $50. I told her she'd never get it, but I went ahead and listed it. Sure enough, a guy contacts me. I could tell he was a little "off". He is 45 minutes away, wants it delivered. Well, we do get down that way from time to time. So I took it to him, the guy was obviously very lonely, wouldn't let me go. He was an accomplished artist and he showed me some very nice things he had done in the 70s. He had a decent 40s table radio that we chatted about. He ended up calling me a couple times just to chat-felt sorry for him. I'm pretty sure he just bought the rug to have somebody to talk to.

Advertised a large piece of equipment I have at work. Guy is very interested and asks he can come over the next day to look at it. I spend a couple hours pulling this thing out and cleaning it, gathering up all the accessories that go with it, the paperwork, etc. He shows up, right on time, and looks at it in awe. He then lets me know that he had no intention of buying it, he just thought it would be neat to see! That was almost 2 years ago and nobody ever has bought the thing.

Last year I spotted a very nice black-dial Zenith that was poorly advertised; it was obvious the seller didn't know what she had. I emailed her and gave her lots of information, gave her some price ranges, did what I could. I knew I couldn't offer her what it was really worth. We exchanged several cordial emails but then she sent me a last one telling me I was way off base on my pricing. (too low) Apparently a bidding war had opened up on her set. Not sure what the final result was, but I thought she was extremely curt in her reply, considering I had no interest in the radio.
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Old 04-06-2011, 02:38 PM
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ChrisW6ATV ChrisW6ATV is offline
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I have had only really good luck with my Craigslist ads, and with purchases as well. Some of the buyers' stories are interesting. I sold a 42" LCD monitor to a guy who was going to use it for multiple windows of an online game Web site. He tested it at my house, and it did just what he wanted. An extension ladder I had was bought by a woman who lived in a carriage house, and she needed it to reach her windows. Her friend lived in a similar place, and they were splitting the cost of the ladder to share it.

I did put my 14" 1956 Hotpoint TV on there, though, and I got no replies. Maybe I should put it on here instead?
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