I saw this on ebay. The listing is for a b&W Zenith, but the information in the description sounds interesting....it's all about a eccentric guy and his collection of electronics. The eBay seller is going to be selling the guys estate off. Could be some finds in there for collectors.


http://cgi.ebay.com/1970s-ZENITH-SPACE-COMMAND-MODERN-VINTAGE-B-W-TV-NOS_W0QQitemZ380029151373QQihZ025QQcategoryZ3638QQ ssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

...

I saw this on ebay. The listing is for a b&W Zenith, but the information in the description sounds interesting....it's all about a eccentric guy and his collection of electronics. The eBay seller is going to be selling the guys estate off. Could be some finds in there for collectors.

http://cgi.ebay.com/1970s-ZENITH-SPACE-COMMAND-MODERN-VINTAGE-B-W-TV-NOS_W0QQitemZ380029151373QQihZ025QQcategoryZ3638QQ ssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

There already are some interesting items-- if you check the seller's other current auctions, one of them is for a factory-built Dynaco PAS-3X pre-amp that's still sealed in its original box!

-Kevin

There already are some interesting items-- if you check the seller's other current auctions, one of them is for a factory-built Dynaco PAS-3X pre-amp that's still sealed in it's original box!

-Kevin

I saw that.

I shudder to think what prices that the R2R's would commend. :yikes:

this guy sounds familiar to me. i am a salesman.once ,more than a few years ago,i had a lead in southern ohio.a recluse in a big but rundown home.i remember
him being really good person but kind of strange. all these items that were bought and repacked.i worked for the craftmatic company and he had 2 beds already.never slept on.i was ready to leave when he asked me to write up the order!i refused to sell him the bed.didnt feel right about it.told the company to send someone else out,i wouldnt do it.anyway,he was a gadget guy for sure. many new items dating from the 50s were there in the original boxes.though i didnt make any money,i didnt mind meeting and seeing him.great guy,just didnt care too much for people.i cant remember his name.

Do you remember the news story about the lady who embezzled loads of money from her employer and lived in a house stacked to the ceilings with unopened boxes? I think many were eBay purchases, as well as new items.

There's a name for this disorder -- hoarding syndrome, perhaps. Some people do it with animals. They are eventually busted when someone discovers dozens or hundreds of neglected animals on their property.

The advantage of hoarding electronics is that they don't get sick or need to be fed, and they don't cannibalize their housemates' corpses.

Phil Nelson

Do you remember the news story about the lady who embezzled loads of money from her employer and lived in a house stacked to the ceilings with unopened boxes? I think many were eBay purchases, as well as new items.
Phil Nelson

It's Ironic that you should bring that up, if you are referring to the case in Nashville TN, then that lady is one of my oldest friends "Becky". It is true that she loves to hoard stuff forever. Somewhere in that collection of stuff is the dress "and the original box and wrapping" I gave her in 1984. Her hoarding makes her look guilty "in the eyes of the media" although I have never known her to steal anything. After she is found innocent, the counter suit she will win, will make her a rich woman.
I also suffer from hoarding disorder to a lesser degree but I acknowledge it and it is a day to day struggle.
I was laid off from a company 4 years ago and i have been able to pay the rent, bills etc. just by selling off my excess, Logan

I know a Antique dealer that hoards stuff back. He even had some old sets at one time. His place is stacked like a house of cards and is a danger to the public. He even said one that he loves to buy, but doesn't care much about selling. He also has a couple of storage buildings full of stuff. He had some in a old house too, but someone bought it and made him get it out.

The places where he has the stuff stored are wet, moldy etc....it is decaying away. The old sets I remember seeing at one time were beyond repair. There were even birds/rats nest in there and grass growing through the floor....I could go on and on.

in my life i have seen many hoarders.a few years ago in washington courthouse ohio,i ran into the ultimate one.he had a 100 lineal foot basement that was stacked to the rafters with boxes,etc.packed full.we went upstirs and the rest of his home was the same way.he even had a box full of empty big mac containers!just enough room to squeeze through.unreal.would not part with anything.his garage was the same and his two pole barns(30x25)packed too.very nice,clean,sensable man.interesting to talk with.never threw out anything.the electronics items were unbelievable.neat and organized.i sold him a waterproof system because he needed it and didnt want his stuff to be damaged.imagine,a box of velveeta cheese boxes!!4 zenith consoles from the 80s-same model,same cabinet.i heard it when they went to do the job.had to move everything in the basement outside.i guess he cried when something was misplaced.literally sat down in his yard and cried until the item was found.i never will forget him.

I look forward to seeing what other items this seller will be putting up. I did ask about NIB zenith color TVs, and he said there were none from what he could tell. Perhaps more b+w sets.

Id like to grab one of these NIB zeniths. That one he is selling is from '77.

Its funny to mention all the people who hoard and never throw anything away. You read it in the description of estate sales all the time, talk to people who "kept everything" including newspapers and misc. However, the old TVs always got thrown out! I think TV's are the only exception! I cant tell you how many times Ive gone to sales that the home was jam packed with stuff yet I find either an empty TV cart or a new TV on an old cart. Where did the old TV go? They kept every other dang peice of junk since 1950 but not the broken TV!

One interesting thing I have noticed on eBay, is the Space Command remotes show up every week, but never the TV. I figured most people would whine about having the TV but need the remote.

I've run into several hoarders, too. Used bookstores are notorious for this, I guess. One place burned to the ground years ago and the replacement now looks like the same kind of firetrap. One old fellow had his store spread between 2 buildings, with 12" paths winding through parts of the pile. When he died they had an auction and there were all sort of neat things-Atwater-Kent radios, speakers, etc. It was all spread out in the parking lot, I looked in one of the buildings and you couldn't tell they had even started carrying stuff out.

There are a couple "junque" stores I know of locally, both owned by women of a similiar age, and both are a disaster. If they would just pull things out of the pile as they sell things they might do okay, but instead they just keep buying and buying and buying. Last years stuff is rusting and rotting and the stuff from the year before that is hopelessly buried, ruined with cat urine & mold, and then there is stuff from the year before that and the year before that. There is some good stuff buried in those stacks, but it might take you all day to dig it out. (and I am not exaggerating-I've tried it before) The one woman has sent me on wild goose chases before, "Bryan, I think there is a big radio over in that corner, we put it there the week before last" and a half-hour later I can just see a corner of it!

When I was young, I worked at a senior citizen's center that provided free in-home services (cleaning, transportation, etc.) to old folks who needed help to remain independent in their homes.

There were a few sad cases in which the infirm person refused any help with removing the newspapers & garbage stacked up to the rafters. The Health Department finally had to condemn the houses as unfit for human habitation and do what they called a "shovel out." Everything, including the dead pets and live rats, went into dumpsters, and the occupants were taken to a healthier place. The houses were gutted or bulldozed.

Don't go there :-(

Phil Nelson

There is a guy up north around NY who has a great business of cleaning up after hoarders, he separates the valuables from the crap. His site is called www.disposophobia.com check out his site for before and after pictures of hard core hoarders. He is one of the first persons, who has identified the problem and helps in treating affected people rather than just condemning them and their homes. P.S. I have no affiliation with him, I just admire his work, Logan

Now that is some crazy sh*t! Why would anyone keep so much garbage! Think of how many tvs they could keep instead!{grin}

Some years ago, there was a case like that here, reported in somewhat of a sensacionalistic manner in one of the Police-News show of bigger audience. It was in a middle class neighborod in the city of São Paulo ( the largest South American city ); the people of that neighborod were extremely bothered by the awful smell that was coming from an old lady's house. The crazy thing was, she was a WEALTHY old lady, she had many buildings scattered through the city, her income came from renting those buildings. She also had a 40 - some year old son that lived with her.

I guess both son and mother were somewhat mentally disturbed. Because the old lady's house was so completely full of junk and garbage, it was really unbelieavable. I am not talking about the outside of the house; no, I am talking about all the INSIDES, of the old 1940's home - a 2 level home, I must add. Every part of the house, the living room, the bedrooms, everything, was like a sea of garbage and junk. I am not exaggerating. It really was like a sea: all that garbage was at the level of an adult person's midsection, in every part of the house. They literally had to SWIM through the garbage to be able to walk inside that house. It was not like she just kept useless stuff, like 10 year old newspapers; it was even worse than that: the sacks of organic garbage, that normal people put outside the house to be retrieved by the garbage truck, she kept, all of them, alongside her piles of junk. On top of that, she also had MANY cats. And she had been living like that for YEARS.

The house was just so cluttered of junk and garbage, that she didn't sleep in her bed for years - her bedroom was cluttered as well, and the bed was buried under all the junk and garbage. Believe me, she slept every night, during all those years, in a junky, decaying, full of corrosion - and obviously, not working - late 1970's/early 1980's small FIAT automobile, an automobile that was somewhere in the middle of all that mess.

When the public authorities arrived to clean the house, both mother and son made a lot of protest, crying that the city authorities were "violating their rights" . I don't remember exactly, but the TV news guy said that something like 300 TONS of junk and garbage were retrieved from that house that day. I remember that they needed several trucks to do that job.

My grandparents also used to store a lot of junk on their backyard. But not even close to that old lady's level!!!

I remember that at one time, they had many old and useless washing machines and dish washers outside their house. Every time a washer broke beyond repair, after they bought a new one, instead of sending the old one to the dumpster, they simply let the old one sit on their backyard. They also had other types of junk there as well.

One day, my mother paid a cleaning company to clean all that mess on her parents backyard. It took the cleaning company a whole afternoon to do the job.

There was, still, one spot left untouched: an old and ugly wood house that they have on the back of their backyard. There was also a lot of unhealthy stuff on the basement of that house. An uncle of mine cleaned that himself some weeks ago. The level of junk that was there was also hard to believe: from old 1970's car wheels to lots and lots of rotting pieces ( big pieces ) of wood, pieces large enough to make another house. Those pieces of wood were rotting from both humidity and rat urine. My uncle said that my grandfather kept those pieces of wood since the 1960's . There were a lot of rats ( big rats ) in there as well. One of them was already dead.

this whole affair is definitely strange, huh! anyhow, this may be the only time any of us ever gets to see anything like this, so please enjoy...


-ZENITH HO901J-

http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll310/shaorin-chan/HO91J1.jpg
http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll310/shaorin-chan/HO91J2.jpg
http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll310/shaorin-chan/HO91J3.jpg
http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll310/shaorin-chan/HO91J4.jpg
http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll310/shaorin-chan/HO91J5.jpg
http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll310/shaorin-chan/HO91J6.jpg
http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll310/shaorin-chan/HO91J7.jpg

Someone in this forum should grab that Zenith!!! Starting bid is really cheap on this one!!!

They did quite well with the Dynaco 3X:

http://cgi.ebay.com/VIRGIN-DYNACO-DYNAKIT-PAS-3X-STEREO-PREAMPLIFIER-N-O-S_W0QQitemZ380029138588QQihZ025QQcategoryZ67807QQs sPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Wish my old one had been worth that much! :)

-Kevin

Wow, amazing what the stuff will go for if its "new in the box". That zenith TV if used but still mint condition without the box would have been passed on for a 9.99 opening bid. This guy is going to make a fortune selling all this NIB stuff.

I bought one of his Sherwood receivers he had up last week. I will post pictures once I receive it. I looked at his current auctions and he has a unbuilt Heath monoblock, he took the tubes out and selling them in a different auction.

I would of been in heaven with the old washing machines in the backyard! Scrap steel is at is highest right now. My brother has connections through his work that gives him free steel which he scraps. The steel is going to pay for his Canada fishing trip. The other day i picked up a washer dryer pair for scrap. The washer is an old Maytag that works! That one im keeping, and im not going to mention what im going to do with that one here. I can only give a clue. Making $$$$$$$!

Years ago (starting in the late 1960s), when I lived in a Cleveland suburb, I collected old TVs I would find in my neighbors' trash. Kept the sets in my basement. Many of the sets worked, but some of them were beyond repair and were used strictly for parts to keep the good ones going. Had to dispose of all but three, however, when I moved in 1972. The rest of the sets in the basement of my former home were trashed (not by my own choice); there were other circumstances as well that forced me to give up those sets, many of which would have been collectible antiques today.

I moved again in 1999 to a small apartment in another town, which meant having to dispose of even more stuff when I arrived at the new place (I had moved back to the other house in 1975, but had to move out 24 years later). I now collect small vintage radios, mostly Zenith but I do have two Sony portables and an Aiwa AR-115 AM/FM set as well; they take up much less room than TVs and use less power to boot--my Zenith MJ1035 FM stereo radio draws only 52 watts, for example, and the transistor sets draw far less. My collection fits neatly into the bedroom, nothing disorganized (I am a very organized person and often wonder about folks who let their homes/apartments get so cluttered with junk that the authorities eventually must intervene).

BTW, people who "collect" animals may have serious mental problems and/or do not realize that such a hobby can be a health hazard as well as a public nuisance, not to mention the expense of feeding the animals and so on. There should be a law (there probably is one on the books in most states) against hoarding animals in cities, I once heard (I think it was on a television show or the evening news years ago) about an elderly woman who lived alone in a large city, and had hundreds (!) of cats. (I bet the local health department told her in no uncertain terms to do something about that in a hurry, or else.) Cats are wonderful pets (I have one myself), but they do make messes on occasion and need to be fed regularly, among other things, so most of us cannot afford to have anywhere near "hundreds" of cats in our homes. Moreover, I do not think most apartment landlords would approve of a tenant that had an unreasonable number of cats. Many landlords simply do not allow pets in their buildings, but there are exceptions. The exceptions come at a price, though--the tenant must pay a pet deposit ahead of the first month's rent in most cases. I know of at least one person in this building, however, who has more than one cat, but she isn't collecting them so she is in the clear.

Wow, amazing what the stuff will go for if its "new in the box". That zenith TV if used but still mint condition without the box would have been passed on for a 9.99 opening bid. This guy is going to make a fortune selling all this NIB stuff.

That set was misrepresented. It is not a "Space Command" portable, as there is no remote (none of those small 12" b&w Zenith portables had remote control). These sets sold for very low prices when they were new (I bought one at a discount appliance store 30 years ago for $62), so they did not have much in the way of bells and whistles (remote control or anything else). IMHO, the seller is probably trying to make this set seem more important than it is, or probably ever was.