When I saw the pic of that 1976 pedestal Zenith portable, it brought back memories. I had a 12" solid-state Zenith portable (model J121Y), with a detented UHF tuner (I bought the set in 1978 to replace a 19" Zenith b&w Space Command "300" TV I had trash-picked a year earlier). The new set had a black pedestal base and worked for me, with a beautiful picture on its monopole antenna (even in the near-fringe area I lived in at the time) and no chassis/CRT problems whatsoever, for the next 22 years. I should have kept it (the only real problem with it was that the detent mechanism for the UHF tuner broke in the early '80s), but I moved to a small apartment in late 1999 and had no room for the TV (I already have two color sets here). The little set went out for the trash.
I know, I probably should have donated the set to Goodwill, the Salvation Army or one of my neighbors in the apartment building where I live; however, I think the set may have a new owner after all, as I noticed a couple of days after I put the set out (before the regular trash pickup here), it was gone, so perhaps someone in my apartment building grabbed it.
If so, whomever has that set today now has a TV made to last, as this portable was made by the original Zenith Radio Corporation of Chicago, not Goldstar. I guess it must have been made extremely well, to have lasted over two decades with no chassis troubles and the original CRT, which was still very strong and bright.