My Latest 12" B&W Find
 

I just won this 12" B&W Zenith on Ebay. It does not work and is filthy as you can see but appears to be complete. I have always liked this model but never found one. Can anyone tell me the approximate age of this set? It looks to me to be from the early Seventies? Is it all tube? I would be interested in anything anyone can tell me about this model. Thanks.

Picture?

I've had several of those Zenith 12" sets and they all were good performers and didn't give many problems. I think they were hybrid by the early '70's.

i had a few as well , nice little sets

i have a earlier tube one just like it that i been trying to give away

Why no takers? Are you willing to ship it if someone pays shipping cost? What color, condition is it in?

I have 2 of those, a '73 and a '74, both have worked for me since the '90s and still have had no trouble. It will last forever. Nice set! I like the color scheme of yours.

Are they all tube or hybrid? Is it a handwired chassis?

One of mine is a 5 tube hybrid {has HV rect. tube} and the later one is a 4 tube hybrid. They are solid state in the I.F section with a small module in top of the chassis with plug in transistors. Sound is tube. The rest is hand-wired. Made in Taiwan but the quality is definitely there.

i believe mine is all tube , its been years since the back cover has been off . It has a small burn on the top of the set and will need a new power cord but it works . Just have no need for it . Will ship to anyone that wants to give it a home .

I had a Zenith 12" portable similar to the one being discussed here in the late '70s (1978). My set was all solid state, so I'd guess by the middle of the decade these little portables had gone from hybrids to 100-percent SS designs.

I think they'd gone SS by '75 and I believe the very last hybrids had detent UHF tuners.

I think the SS sets had their pix controls in front, the hybrids on the side. I had two brand new from late '75 & early '76, both solid state. Reliable as heck, and the best DX sets I've ever had. Used to get some wicked e-skip & tropo dx using those tv's with a very modest antenna. Very sensitive tuners.

Well my Zenith arrived yesterday. The antenna is broken and the back cover is cracked. The rest of the set appears to be intact albeit covered in crud. It is a four tube chassis: audio output, vertical, horizontal osc. output and damper. The rest is all transistor. The set is completely dead, no tubes light or anything. It looks like it will be fun to work on.

I might be interested in your set. How bad is the burn mark? has it melted the plastic or can it be polished out? If I can get a good back and antenna I can make a pristine example of this model. I suspect from the date code on the tube my set was made in 1973.

Good luck, compucat. I always liked these too. They indeed last forever and are good performers. I passed on an '81 all SS model at a thrift last month since they wanted $30 for it.... :scratch2:

Anyway, is it handwired or circuit board?

The chassis is a metal frame handwired type. It has two small circuit boards. One vertically mounted board appears to be for the I.F. stages. The other horizontally mounted board is likely the video/audio board. All the tube sockets are mounted to the metal chassis and hand wired. The tuner appears to be solid state. The high voltage rectifier appears to be solid state also. There is definite build quality to it. It is quite heavy as there is much metal to the inside of it. It will make a nice winter project. These show up on Ebay alot so getting parts should not be too difficult.