Estate Sale Finds in 2010!

[drh4683]

There was one sale today in Skokie at 9523 Leamington Ave. I found a nice clean 25" Chromacolor II table set with the cart up in one of the bedrooms. Its a 25GC45 chassis, model G4740W and it has the varactor tuner. This is my 2nd 25" steel cabinet CCII set that I found this year at the estates. Rather unusual that I've found two of the big full sized table sets when usually they are impossible to find. This one is a 1976 by model but was built in May, 1975 and was also a victim of the infamous white safety capacitor. This one was replaced under warranty as seen by the yellow tag on back "4 lead capacitor modified". So its kind of nice having an early run CCII chassis in a table model. Having that Gusdorf cart too made it a complete set up and it doesn't look like this TV saw much use either. It works fine like a Zenith usually does. All it needed was a vertical size touch up. Got the whole thing for 10 bucks, my kind of deal. It never occured to me until just now, but in looking at my pictures, the previous owner had the TV sitting on the cart backwards. The "finished" side of the cart was facing the wrong way!

The room with the blue textured wool carpeting is one of the bedrooms in my new house. So its going to still be in its appropriate "habitat" so to speak...
Also, thanks for the compliments on the house. Im currently working on fixing up some things still, once I get it to a happy medium, I'll definately be sharing some photos with all of you as the house is basically all original from '64 and it'll stay that way, just cleaning it up a bit, some new paint in the rooms and clean the original carpets which are actually in excellent condition.

[radiotvnut]

Congratulations & nice save! For the exception of your set having a chromatic switch, it looks nearly identical to my '79 "K" line steel cabinet Zenith that I recently found. One can never have too many CCII's!

[freakaftr8]

Typical Zenith quality. Still working.. Nice score Doug!
P.S. Nice house! I dig the decor.

[Findm-Keepm]

Originally Posted by drh4683

This one is a 1976 by model but was built in May, 1975 and was also a victim of the infamous white safety capacitor. This one was replaced under warranty as seen by the yellow tag on back "4 lead capacitor modified".

I don't think that was a warranty replacement - Zenith TechTips announced the 4 lead kits with the "modified" tag in late 1977 (It's a Jan 78 TechTips). We replaced a TON of the safety caps in the early 80's and attached the tags.
BTW, the metal cabinet sets were popular with hotels and the military - great for barracks common areas where the sets saw a lot of abuse. Our System III test jig was a CCII (Duramodule) metal cabinet fitted with a Sys III CRT/yoke combo and two tuner clusters - one a DA and the other a MT version. A Zenith service seminar rep showed us how to build one after we saw the one Zenith used in their roadshow.

Cheers,

[drh4683]

First sale I went to was after work on Friday 7-30 in Elmhurst at 465 ridge rd. I picked up a Motorola table AM FM stereo/phono unit. It was plugged in and working in the basement on the shelf that it was most likely custom built for. I never saw a Motorola table model like this before so it was a nice addition to the collection. Like all real Motorola products, they were made at the Franklin Park plant, which was essentially right down the street from where I found it. Model ST-82A from 1964.
On Saturday I went to two sales. The first was in Northbrook at 2215 Valencia. This is the sale with the little 12" Sears tube type color set. It was sitting on a shelf in an office, still plugged in and wired up to the outdoor antenna still. These didn't have istant on, so the TV's life was spared. The set is like new still and hardly ever used, it still works fine and it has all the lables on it still. While I couldn't easily find anything with a date code, I had to look it up in the sams index. Its sams #1079 which is from 1970 and is very early in the index as 1970 sams start with folder #1076. I'd imagine this TV is probably a 1969 model. It is a Toshiba made set too, 562.10428, and many components have the Toshiba name. Its in a nice metal cabinet with big ventilation slots on the side and has 14 tubes in it, so theres barely any solid state in this one! It was $20. I also took a picture so you could compare the competition this set had in 1969 with the comparable Zenith 14". Very cool little set and definately one of the rarer TV finds. There can't be too many of these left, kind of amazing that it was still set up for regular use 41 years later...
The last find was a real dissapointment. It was in Broadview at 2240 22nd Ave. I went in the house and didn't find any TV's, but I found a MIB portable zenith stereo phono but it was sold. Oh well, so I continued to look around and I found a few tubes that I knew were from a late 60's color set. Just for the heck of it, I asked the ladys running the sale if there was an old Zenith TV in the house. Sure enough "Oh yes, but it didn't work so we put it outside for the garbage yesterday, its still behind the house if you want it". I figured it was just some newer pbc set, but nope. I walked outside and I was totally bummed out when I turned the corner to see what was just 24 hours previously a mint condition 1969 Zenith console color set. The idiots drug it out of the house and slid it on the ground tearing up the top and then to add insult to injury, we got a nice rain fall that evening and the TV got destroyed with water. When I went to tilt the TV back, about 2 gallons of water poured out the set which is all the water you see in the photo under the TV. So when I stood it back up, the bottom was so soft that the leg just snapped right off because of the soft soggy wood as the set was just sitting there upside down, not to mention all that particle board just expanded and it'll never be right again. I still took it to get the tuner and chassis. Its a shame as this is one of my favorite control panel layouts as you don't find this one too often. I guess the real annoyance about this whole thing is that the TV actually had a $10 price tag on it and I came to find out someone tried it at the sale and it didn't work, so they just throw it outside to get it out of the house? WHY? THE SALE ISN'T OVER YET, GIVE IT A CHANCE, YOU NEVER KNOW! It makes no sense to me why they felt it neccessary to do that. I also get annoyed with dumpsters in driveways when I pull up to an estate sale, you look in the dumpster and the entire contents of the home is in there, yet when you go inside, there is nothing but the useless crap like glass figurines and misc linens and some ugly 80's wall pictures. If you're going to have an estate sale, why not let the customers decide what gets saved or not? After the sale, then it would be justified to do whatever it is you want with the stuff as it didn't sell. I guess that kind of logic makes too much sense for most people.
Either way, the Sears set was a great find as it would much harder to find one of those again vs. a late 60's zenith console...












1969 Sears (Toshiba) 12" color TV















The comparable competition:
1969 Japanese made metal cabinet Sears/Toshiba Vs. 1969 American made metal cabinet Zenith 15Y6C15

[tritwi]

How nice!!! The small Zenith tv near the Sears portable set just look exactly like my beloved 15Y6C15 Zenith tv! I cared so much about it and it was stolen from my garage...
I would love so much to find another...

[radiotvnut]

What a shame about that Zenith console. One really would think that the people running these sales wouldn't get "dumpster happy" until after the sale. After all, the object of a sale is to make money. It's a little hard to sell something if it's left out in the rain to ruin or thrown in a dumpster. Sometimes, It's hard to hit a happy medium. We either have the greedy "antiques road show" sellers who think everything is priceless or we have the type of seller demonstrated here who thinks, "no one will want this obsolete non-working TV". At least maybe the chassis, tuner, CRT, and knobs can be used to bring another TV back to life.

At least you were able to save the Motorola stereo and the Sears TV as I suspect both of those are not very common. Years ago, I had a Motorola console stereo with that same control layout; but, I've never seen a portable version. I suspect '64 was the end of the road for tube type Motorola Stereo's, radio's, and phonograph's.

[miniman82]

I knew that Sears set had tubes in it!

[dieseljeep]

Hey Doug. What chassis is in that Zenith. Maybe it's a 14A9C50. You told me that was one of the models you didn't have. Dave.

[batterymaker]

Doug, would you happen to have a pic of the 1968 version of that wet Zenith console TV? My grandmother had the damaged one you have here, but our first color set, I think, was a '68 model. It was a wood console, but like your metal cabinet X4204, I want to say the three control knobs were mounted above the tuning knobs, and the screen did that sort of odd kaleidoscope-winking effect when you switched it on and off.

[drh4683]

Originally Posted by dieseljeep

Hey Doug. What chassis is in that Zenith. Maybe it's a 14A9C50. You told me that was one of the models you didn't have. Dave.

Hey Dave,

This one is a 16Z8C50. You're right though, I don't have any 14A9C50 chassis sets and it is still one of the models I really want to find.

I'm still bummed out over this set getting wrecked like it did. The thing was mint before the hackers drug it outside scraping it along the drive way and leaving it in the rain...
I don't have any zeniths with this control panel layout and it was one I've always wanted, but no sense in keeping it around as the cabinet is junk now. I've had a couple like this in the past, but they were sets that had been used for parts by TV shops that I got when I was a kid.

[andy]

...

[zenithfan1]

Hey Doug, what are you going to do with that Zenith? I'd like to have it for parts.

[drh4683]

Originally Posted by andy

Doug, as usual, I'm amazed an the cool vintage electronics you find. I also like the look of that hanging lamp to the right of the Motorola stereo.

Thanks. I thought that was a cool lamp too but I wasn't able to get it. Lots of the stuff at this sale was extremely high priced.

Most of the fun I think is just the search for the stuff, going to all of the different sales throughout the suburbs.

As far as the Zenith TV is concerned, I was going to part it out and hang onto the chassis and components, and if the CRT is good, Im going to hang onto that too. I made some nice shelves at the house to store just parts chassis and CRT's so I can keep them all neat and organized.

The TV thats similar to the table model X4504 can be found in an earlier posting here that was an estate sale find on 5-28-10. It was a 20" mini console that fits the description you had. I gave it miniman82 shortly after I found it. I don't have any other ones like the one described. I might have a picture of one in a '68 brochure though.

[miniman82]

Had a good day in Waukegan. Wasn't even gonna stop, but on a whim my wife and I followed the signs to an estate sale just off of Sheridan Rd (near Greenwood Ave). The house was very nice, and was itself being sold for less than $130k. Nice brick place, would probably be worth a quarter mil if rehabed.

Inside I found a Zenith, a VT-71, and a Philco AA5 radio/record player.

The Zenith works, but I hear hissing and smell ozone. Probably old HV wiring or something. I can't tell what model is it, because the stickers all fell off some time ago. The antennas are good, and it even came with a bowtie UHF.

The VT-71 looks good, aside from what looks like an infestation of roaches at some point. I think all that's left is ancient eggs, but I'm not taking any chances- it's staying otuside till I get it cleaned up. As always, the foam deal is saggy, and will need to be replaced. Do they still have those for sale at ETF classifieds? The 7JP4 has a good getter and the filament lights up, but there are 2 broken pins onthe socket. They look repairable, but I may need a new socket. HV transformer looks good as well, but I can tell it's well used- every single tube is a different brand.

The Philco radio is interesting: it's an AA5, but if you pull the front flap down and release 2 spring loaded brass pegs, the whole top swings open to reveal a record player.

Total? $85 for all three.