[Jeffhs]

What on earth was so special about the flashlight-like unit that controlled the Flash-Matic? The seller said these controllers alone often sell for over $100. I can't imagine why. The thing looks like an ordinary flashlight; as a matter of fact, I would think any standard flashlight, preferably one with a "flash" button so that the beam could be pulsed on and off as needed, would work just as well. After all, a beam of light is a beam of light, whether it comes from a Zenith Flash-Matic ray-gun shaped flashlight or a common 3-volt flashlight. The Flash-Matic's photocells don't care where the light originates.

BTW, the Zenith Flash-Matic TV is so rare because the set was only marketed for one model year and really didn't catch on with the public, IIRC. Two reasons for this were, one, it was eventually found out by Zenith that many people who owned these sets (what few of them must have been sold) could not remember which photocell controlled which function of the TV. Two, if the TV were located near a window in the owner's living room/den/family room, the remote control system would go absolutely bonkers if sunlight streamed in that window and struck all four cells at the same time.

I've mentioned this before in a previous post of mine regarding the FlashMatic: I wonder how many of these sets suffered damage to the tuner drive mechanism, including but by no means limited to burning out the drive motor, when stray light would strike the channel up/down photocells at the same time and the motor would try to rotate in both directions at once, or sunlight striking one cell would cause the tuner to spin in one direction indefinitely, as long as the stray light was present. IMHO, either condition could have been entirely possible, as the FlashMatic remote system had no lockout schemes or other protection devices to prevent such mishaps.

Four hundred dollars as an opening eBay bid for a 52-year-old b&w television seems rather high--in fact, to my way of thinking, it is much too high. The set may have sold for that much in 1956, but I seriously doubt that the set is worth anywhere near that much today, the fact that this was Zenith's (and the world's) first wireless remote controlled TV notwithstanding.

If this were a color set I could see a $400 starting bid, but since it is b&w and over five decades old....yes, I agree with the poster who said the seller is "a bit" greedy. "A bit" is an understatement, IMHO. If it were me selling that set, I'd set the opening bid no higher than, say, $150, considering the age of the unit. I see this sort of thing (ridiculously high opening bids) on eBay all the time, especially for certain rare Zenith radios such as the "Walton" model. Besides, who, in this day and age of $4+/gallon gas, is going to drive hundreds of miles to pick up a TV set that is old enough to vote, and then some? For most people, this would be out of the question. Something else to consider is this: Transporting a television set (or anything else, for that matter) that large any distance is very risky. Within a small neighborhood (or even to a nearby city or town) it isn't too bad, but if someone tried to haul this set from one coast to the other, 3,000 miles (for example), the risk wouldn't be worth it. Even from Memphis to anywhere else in the U. S. is a long way to haul anything of that size; once again, the risk of damage is so great that it probably wouldn't be worth the trouble, unless someone wanted the set so badly he or she would be willing to accept any and all damage (including but not limited to a smashed CRT) that may occur to to it on the way to their door.