Estate Sale Finds In 2011!
 

The estate sales thread continues...with a very long departure from VK, Im glad to be back. Yesterdays sale was at 6533 Kensington Ct, in Downers Grove, IL. My goal was to buy a work bench at yesterdays sale, but that was already sold. However, I stumbled across a rather interesting set that I would have never expected to find, especially in a somewhat newer subdivision. Its a 1973 Magnavox. Its the real deal when they were still made in Ft. Wayne, IN. Its a mostly all tube set, still using a 6BK4 regulator as well. It was sitting in the unfinished (dry) basement covered in light dust probably since the late 80's when this sub was built. No price tag on it, probably expected it to be junked after the sale. At a first glance I figured it was a solid state set but I was wrong. Its actually full of tubes. This one is about as low hour as anyone could hope for. It basically never got used, I was first to take the back off too. Its like new inside and this set works perfect still with a great sharp picture. They ended up wanting $20 for it. I drove home to get my appliance cart, but by the time I got back, someone offered to help me move it. The CRT is a magnavox with the 274 EIA code, so its really an RCA. Its a nice sounding set too, must be right at the tail end of Magnavox tube type chassis. A very unique set, but pretty decent quality too, even the cabinet. Just needs a wipe down with a damp cloth on top to get rid of the dryed water mark.


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Welcome back Doug! You've been missed around here.

Nice set!

That's a nice looking set, very clean too.

"drh4683",
I love your signature,"I tolerate the present by living in the past"
It's good to know I'm not the only one who feels that way!

Incidentally,I really enjoyed your videos on the Seeburg 1000 background music system and your 6cyl "Vista roof" Impala,in addition to your tvs of course!
I collect those background records too.

Congratulations on your find....nice Dodge in the background too!

Welcome back, Doug!

That is a nice set that looks to have been used very little!

According to a Magnavox repairman who I used to know, the T974 was the last hybrid large screen color chassis. He added that the T979 was the first SS large screen color chassis. I actually have a T979 solid state Magnavox from around the same time period as your set.

Hey! Glad to see you back around! That's a nice looking Maggie you stumbled across.

been awhile!glad to see you posting again.havent seen a magnavox like that since the 80s.good looking set.

It's got to be nice to pick up a set and realize you're the first one to have the back off!

-J

Nice start to the 2011 estate sale thread. Glad to see you're back.
Is the UHF tuner continuous or does it have stops for each channel?

Great find! Glad to see you posting again Doug!

Thanks all. Glad to be back on-line. The UHF tuner system is what I call the "odometer style" as it has two individual rotary drums that indicate each channel. I've never run across this chassis before, so needless to say its a nice piece to add to the collection. Lots of nichicons in there too...

Hey Doug! Good to see you again! Nice Maggie too. Nichions huh, sounds solid as a rock.

Estate Sale Find 2-26-11
 

An Oak Forest estate sale at 15224 Arroyo Ave. Found two Zenith consoles, first one was down in the basement which was a 1973 model with the flat solid state chassis. As ususal someone is standing right in front of it and the guy didn't want to move as he was just talking to someone else at the sale. Its a model D4744W, 25DC56 horizontal solid state. The rocker switch failed like so many of them do and the previous owner rigged in a new push button switch. He drilled a small hole, about 3/16" through the cabinet to make it work. I suppose thats better than going through the control panel. It can be corrected to look decent and install a new switch which I have a few of. The sets in nice shape, its just coated in dust. The asking price was a little insane, they wanted $75.00 for it. I didn't say anything yet, so I looked around the rest of the house before I asked about getting the price down for a basically "useless to the modern world" TV. The house was jammed with stuff. Upstairs in the master bedroom was a rather unexpected find. A 1974 Zenith Avanti with space command. Its another flat chassis solid state, the 25EC58. A bonus with this one, the manuals and papers were in a bag ontop of the TV. Then I saw the price tag on this one. WTF almost came right out of my mouth. No way was I about to pay that insane asking price or anything near it. I knew if I didn't take the set, it would be dumpster material though. That being said, I felt it was my responsibility to get the set out of its current misery though, it was one of those houses with millions of glass figurines and dolls all over the place, the walls were covered in decorative dinner plates as well. These obviously are not my favorite estate sales to say the least... Not sure how the husband was able to deal with all of that, but then found out he died back in '83 so this must have been his wifes way of occuping her time for the next 28 years.
On to the sales desk, the ladies running the sale instantly recognized me as "TV guy". "Hey your the TV guy, did you see the TV's". I was polite but had to inform them that those prices were priced way out of my league. The one lady goes "really, that pedistal one must be rare". I had to inform them that nobody in the world would pay $325, just being honest as I've been doing the TV thing for so many years I've seen what they go for. So the lady gives me a sheet and asks me to write my bid down. I also told them $75 for the one downstairs is overly optimistic as well. So she said to write two bids down. So I wrote down $40 for the avanti "bedroom TV", and $25 for the "basement TV" as that was the fair real world asking prices for such TV's. The lady looked at my bids as I told her Im not trying to insult you but those are honest prices for what those sets should be going for at an estate sale. The other ladies were like "Your probably right, just take them for $65". I couldn't believe that, I figured they'd get all upset and argue with me. Im usually not the type to try to get prices down but this was a case of extreme greed and or overly optimistic sellers. Besides, I usually never find an old console priced at over $50, even if its mint and usually at the $50 and down, I'll just pay it and move on. I think they realized they were in a house with tons of crap and it had to go. The one lady by the door said said nobody could help me and that her son had a bad back. 10 seconds later I see him moving this huge iron statue thing by himself to someones car outside...
Once the guy came in I asked and he gave me his bad back line but then he offered to help. So I told him not to get involved if his back is bad but thanks for offering. I didn't want him to mess up his back even though that statue must have weight as much if not more than the TV... So some other guy offers to help me out. I get the basement set out to the truck, he leaves and goes back in the house to get ready for the avanti upstairs. Its starting to snow heavy out so I had to cover the set up and I couldn't get in the house right away. Sure enough I see the avani coming out the front door with the "bad back" guy helping move the set with the other guy at the sale. This woman helping run the sale starts telling me in this rude tone "you should have stepped in and moved it without using my son HE HAS A BAD BACK" like Im supposed to feel guilty and make him stop. I had to tell her Im not the one that forced him to move the set. I told him not to help if his back was bad and he obviously must have have insisted in helping with this other guy while i was still outside. Nothing I could do to stop it. Go yell at your son, not me. Long story short, I gave both guys five bucks and it made their day. The lady running the sale that I made the deal with was perfectly happy with my offers though, so there was no harm done there. It was that other woman who was being a jerk about me "taking advantage of her son with his bad back". Whatever. Before I left the one lady let me look through a box of manuals and sure enough, I find a bag with the manuals for the avanti with the remote control in it. The manuals on top of the avanti at the sale were actually for the set in the basement. So that was a nice plus. Both sets were bought new at Certified Television, they were a huge dealer back in the 60's-early 70's in the Chicago area. Both have the tags on the back when they were installed as new sets. The avanti was set up on 9-12-74 and the other set was 9-15-72. So you ask, just bring an appliance cart and move it yourself to avoid the people? No way would that have worked in this house, the way the stairs were and the people and the clutter it would have been impossible.

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Nice saves Doug:yes:

looking forward to some screen shots.

I used to have a 1972 Zenith console exactly like that when i was a kid during the late 1980's which i got from my brother for free. The leg mounts were poorly made if i can recall.

Nice saves on both of those sets Doug... I like all the Avanti-style sets, and a Danish-Mod SS chassis is also on my "want" list. Keep me in mind if you decide to trade those off! :banana:

Not a problem. You might be offered either of these sooner rather than later...

Same old story, too much coming in, not enough going out.

Okay, neither are rectangular nor solid-state, but they are definitely finds!

I was fortunate to attend an estate sale Friday, a day earlier than the public sale. The house belonged to a gentleman who was a ham and spent his career repairing and calibrating equipment in the Navy, from around WWII until the late 70's. The family had hauled all the electronics from the attic into the kitchen. I couldn't even tell what half of it was. It was strongly emphasized that they wanted to sell it all as a lot. Well, I didn't intend to buy so much, but my offer was accepted and I wound up taking home an F-100 filled to the brim with old Navy test gear, radios, books and the two prizes below: A Hallicrafters T-54 and a Telefunken radio with the Nazi eagle/swastikas beside the dial.

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Yessir, great finds! I know a guy locally (collects militaria) who has one of those German sets. I don't know how rare they are but they make a tremendous conversation piece, if nothing else!

That T-54 is also in great shape, and it is the version with channel 1, I see.

That Telefunken was designed at the request of Goebbels himself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksempfanger

Phil Nelson did a nice write up on The Volksempfanger as well:

http://www.antiqueradio.org/VolksempfaengerVE301dyn.htm

http://www.estatesales.net/estate-sales/169203.aspx

Early-1960's Roundie Console and a tabletop mid-1970's Magnavox in Roselle, IL.

http://www.estatesales.net/estate-sales/169473.aspx

A small set in Naperville, IL.

Is that roundie a magnavox? I'll have to check this one out for sure.

All the great estate sales seem to be hundreds of miles away from where I live (northeastern Ohio, near Cleveland). The small town I live in does not have that many estate sales; those I have seen here don't have TVs, stereo consoles and such. There are folks in this town who have lived here most of if not their entire lives, so I would expect that after they pass on, their relatives would have an estate sale just to get the stuff out of the way, but as of yet (I've lived here 11 years), I haven't seen any sales anywhere near comparable to the ones Doug, et al. find in Chicago. Maybe the fact that Ohio is the easternmost state of the Midwest has something to do with it? Hmmm. :scratch2:

When I saw the pictures of the items for sale at both of the estate sales referenced here, I was reminded of the huge job I had as far as moving stuff went when I moved here in late 1999. I had brought perhaps 80 percent of the stuff with me that I'd had at my previous residence; since I was moving into a small apartment (one bedroom), that meant just about everything I brought here had to go. Go it did, mostly to the trash. Oh well. It will make it a lot easier if I ever have to move again; when I downsized the first time I had gotten rid of most of the stuff I knew I either would not have room for at the new apartment or would no longer have any use for. Seems to me, however, that in both estate sales shown in this thread, the houses were being cleared out 100 percent, as if the owners were moving into furnished apartments or nursing homes, or, as in my case, they were moving into an unfurnished apartment and would buy all new furniture.

BTW, while I did see a '70s-vintage Magnavox 19" color TV in the photos of the Naperville estate sale, I could not find any roundies in either batch of pictures, although I did see a stereo console in one. I looked high and low several times at both sets of photos, but the early '60s Maggie roundie mentioned here was nowhere to be found. Since there were perhaps 100 photos in total (for both sales), perhaps the roundie is there, but I missed it.

I was just surprised to see a roundie. Most of the sets I've been seeing at these nearby estate sales have just been some late-1990's/early-2000's junk, or furniture. The house with the roundie and the tabletop Magnavox looked the best.

I like the Lamp on top of the Roundie, also the vintage Record Player.
I really like that dresser with the tri colored drawers in image 46!

Photo 46 of the Naperville sale. Is that a vintage pong game on the table? Maybe one of the copies? The Maggie roundie is at the Rosselle sale. Photo 60.

Image 63 of the Naperville sale is a Heathkit AA-32 amp, a really nice low power unit with 6GW8 / ECL86 outputs.

I've had two of them and they sound really good for what they are. One of them was a low mileage unit with all orig Mullard tubes that got stored away and became a mouse condo. It was very corroded but it will sing again!

Sorry to get off topic!

Although I definitely want someone to pick up these two sets, they really fit in well with the older house. There was an estate sale posting last week in central Illinois that was selling a 1974 (Gosh I already forgot, I think Zenith) TV and I thought it looked too retro to leave the 1960's house.

I drove over and checked out the sets today on my lunch hour. The roundie is a Magnavox and is priced at $30. The table top was made in 1980 (either Aug. or Oct.) and is priced at $25. I think it is an inline gun CRT, I didn't check that closely. Just guessing by the age.

I don't have really have room for the roundie. I'd be interested in the table top if it had a wood or steel cabinet with power transformer and a delta gun.

Tomorrow is half price day. The sets in general seemed to be in good shape.
Hopefully somebody can give these a good home.

Unless somebody else really wants it, I'll be over there tomorrow to save it.

Estate Sale Find 4-16-11
 

Well I picked up the Magnavox. Nothing to special, the cabinet is pretty beat up, however, it is a remote control set! It was $15.00 at half off. Not sure if it works, its seen various hacks over the years.

I when to another sale in Glen Ellyn at 22W601 Alhlstrand this morning as well and found a nice '73 RCA XL-100 console in the contemporary cabinet with the chrome legs. Its a full size set with a 25" CRT. Model GR-800 A. It was in the 2nd floor family room/den. '73 is also the first year for the XL-100 design so this is first generation for this type of TV. This one has the tilt out control bin with the slider pots and a CTC-48 chassis. It works pretty well, no antenna when I tried it, just my finger on the UHF antenna screws when I tuned in channel 23 to get a faint picture. No price on it at the sale as of course nobody thought it would sell... I got it for $20.00. The cabinet is very nice quality, its all real hardwood, no particle board junk, not even on the bottom of the TV cabinet or at the base by the floor. I wasn't expecting the TV to weigh as much as it did when I was first ready to move it. It definitly has some considerable mass. With a little clean up by the controls, it'll display really well. The TV shop that sold the set most likely are the ones who cut the "1973 model year" off the model tag on back of the set considering it was sold in March of '74. They probably didn't want the buyer to see that it was last years model and probably got him to pay top dollar for it. The model tag on the chassis helps confirm this as the model year part of the tag was present... Why else would that get cut off?
One thing I found interesting is that the warranty registration sheet for the TV was ontop of the set when I found it. The old scotch tape just dried out and someone just pulled it off without damage, however, note that someone had cut the original owners name off the tag as you can tell the entire tag was taped around its rectangular perimeter at one time judging from the tape marks left behind on the back cover... For some reason, someone looked behind this TV and noticed the personal info and had to make sure it was removed.

Its a nice unique set, don't find too many of the contemporary early 70's RCA's.

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now i m jealous!love to have that xl100.i love my nib rca but i like this style cabinetry.looks like the ultimate first years set.congrats to you

It looks very similar to my 1974 except for the speakers.

I've never seen that exact model-very sharp! It screams "1973!" Looks like the kinda set that would be in the living room on the old Bob Newhart or Mary Tyler Moore shows.

Stopped by a sale myself today; I'm seeing more advertised than I ever use to, but most are in newer developments so I don't bother. This one was in a 80 year old house out in the country. Waste of time, though. I don't think there was anything there older than the 80s. $60 for a BPC 25" inside; out in the yard, in the pouring rain, was a 12" bw from the 80s. No thanks.

Growing up we had the JCPenney cousin of that chassis, with a less contemporary cabinet of course. They bought it in fall 1975 after our Motorola WID gave up and cost too much to fix. A family friend had the same set probably the year earlier, and I recall it had a different font on the backlit channel indicators. Odd, eh?

Doug, where are you finding about the locations of these estate sales? I keep looking for Estate Sales in Chicago on estatesales.net, but they are limited. Do you have any suggestions for finding more estate sales in Chicago?

Matt

How many times are you going to makes this thread unnecessarily long by quoting posts with 10 pictures in them??? It's mind of my pet peeve for forums.

i dont think they were doing it purposely to irritate you.it is a little long though.maybe we all should check our pet peeves at the door before we enter.nothing is personal here,you just take it that way

It's just this thing I have. Whenever I quote a post with a lot of pictures, I remove the links to shorten it. It's a courtesy thing to others, so they don't have to scroll through pages of reposted pictures.