Zenith transistorized royal 1290 TV

[drh4683]

I got this set off ebay, after waiting about 3 years to see it pop up again. I originally wanted to buy it after the auction but the seller said no, he will relist it again. That was around december of 02.
This is a very unique piece. Its model "royal 1290" chassis 1M30T20. called the "voyager". This set is from 1966 and was very expensive new. This is zeniths very first all transistor TV introduced to the public. I have a dealer catalog for 66 zenith and this set went for 199.95 new! Built just like the tube type sets, all hand wired, power transformer. Very heavy too. Has a great bright picture, definitly a low hour set hence it still exists. Never seen one of these untill today. A zenith QC man said they where extremely difficult and time consuming to build and hardly any of them sold. Many had problems but were corrected at the factory. He said zenith lost out on this set because of high cost. It was more or less and learning experince in transistor TV. You need to remember, you are spending $200 on a 12" television! For just $100, you can get its tube type counterpart! Which would you choose considering it was 1966?