'60's 23" Truetone B&W at the flea market
 

One of the local flea markets has this late '60's 23" B&W Truetone console and I think it's a rebadged Admiral. Unfortunately, the cabinet is a little beat up and they want $75 for it. The vendor who owns it said I could have it for $50; but, that's still too much. If he would allow me to test the CRT and if it's good, I might go as much as $25. Otherwise, $0-$10. If this TV sits long enough and if we can keep the "downcyclers" away from it, I'll probably eventually end up with it at a price I can afford. This particular vendor is bad about painting items in order to move them out the door faster and I'm sure his high asking price is geared towards the fishtank and dog bed crowd. I don't want to see that happen to this TV; but, at the same time, I can't justify spending $50-$75 to prevent that from happening.

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps2hpg6igi.jpg

Has a very Zenith look to it.

The selector knob is a Zenith clone almost but the small
knobs look Admiral. I dont remember rebadged Zenith till the
late 80's. A sure sign of trouble along with licensing your
name to Chinese to put on crap radios.:thumbsdn:

73 Zeno:smoke:

I was thinking Zenith look too... But no door below the screen.....

.

It has a very dirty look about. It must've came from a smoker's place. The CRT is probably dead. They probably ran it until you couldn't see the picture anymore.

I was looking at a better picture of an identical set that a friend has and his set has "insta vu." That scares me because there is a greater chance that this CRT is dead and given how beat up this set is, I'd say it's had a hard life with lots of hours on it. Like I said before, the only way I'd even think about giving him any major amount of money for it would be for him to let me pull the back and test the CRT.

I'd probably go 45$ on a set like that if the CRT tested good.

You never know with late model B&W sets.. Sometimes they were quickly demoted by a new color set, and sat almost unused in a spare bedroom...and sometimes they were run to death.. Of couse if they have instant on it's more likely to be the latter...I have 2 23" b&w sets that are like new, all original tubes and very bright picture tubes.

I used to have an Admiral that same age, a perfectly decent set but nothing to get excited over. If you have one, and decide to pick it up by yourself and carry it down the hall, don't drop it on your toe! That was 20 years ago and that nail is still screwed-up! Anyway, these are rare sets but I don't know if they'll ever find much love.

Well, it's not looking like I'm going to be able to save this set. He says the lowest he can go is $40. I told him that if he'd let me check the CRT and if the CRT was good, I'd give him $30. He told me real quick that he couldn't do that and either buy it for $40 today or it would be painted the next time I saw it.

I hate not being able to save it; but, I'm also not going to be bullied into buying it. He also made some comment about how he finds me all this stuff; but, I rarely buy any of it. I told him that if he'd get right with the price, I'd buy a lot more than I do.

That's a shame these guys seem to think there is huge profit as he probably got it for a ten spot at an estate sale. Thirty is more than reasonable if the CRT is not crap.

A while back, he had a cheaper tube Philco console stereo that he painter red (very sloppy) and it did not work. He had $75 on it; but, offered it to me for $40 (he seems to like these prices). I told him that had he not ruined it, I would have bought it. The next week, it was gone and he made it a point of telling me that a woman saw it, thought it was simply aborable, and paid him $75 for the purpose of sitting her flatscreen on it. I'm happy for him; but, at the same time, I'm a little resentful because he can take a stereo that he proabably paid no more than $10 for, spray it down with a can of dollar store spray paint, and get $75 for it. I could have taken the same stereo, electronically restored it, cleaned up the cabinet, asked $75-$100, and I'll I'd get is people ignoring it and the ones who acted like they were interested would just bitch about the price.

I can't believe you did not take that deal. It is close to impossible buy decent condition unrestored 40's table sets (which are easier to find) for less than 45-50$. If the CRT is junk there is still probably that much in parts in the set if you have patience selling the parts. I'd at least have offered to split the difference at 35$.

Well, money is not coming out of every hole I have and space is limited; so, I have to pick my battles. Too many times, I've paid substantial amounts for old TV's, only to get burned because the CRT was a dud. I might could have even brought it home, had the cabinet been in better shape. I also know that no one else is going to buy that TV from him, unless he paints it in some tacky color and then someone might buy it to gut and turn into a fishtank. However, I can't imagine anyone paying him what he thinks it's worth.

If the CRT is bad, where are you going to get another one. Most of those larger B/W sets, were scrapped, ages ago.
Toward the end of the large screen B/W era, Admiral used some real odd-ball CRT types. Most were made by National Video and possibly Clinton. Both were not known for longevity. :sigh: