Estate Sale Finds in 2009!

[zenithfan1]

GREAT finds Doug! Especially the "Works in a Drawer" Motorola I'm glad you finally found one. It feels really good to "cross one off the list"

[Kiwick]

Originally Posted by drh4683

those horrid "ERO" caps that are scattered throughout the set on various boards. The set has intermittent flashing/agc issues which is caused by those junk ero caps leaking.

Sad to know that those little greenish German bastards are also found in US sets.

European sets are infested with them, they can cause severe damage as they DO go dead short, so don't use the set for any lenght of time before you've replaced all of them with modern caps

[drh4683]

Two estates turned up two old TV's. The first sale was at 8307 W. Knollwood in Palos Park. A wealthy 1950's modern subdivision (My favorites). The sale was jammed with people waiting outside as I got there right when it started. I got the usual number and waited patiently while everyone else complained and started yelling at the estate sale people to let more people in at a time. After about 40 minutes of waiting, my number got called. Finally some peace and quiet. Those people complaining gets on my nerves very quickly.

Everyone entered the house on the lower level. Right when I walked in, I found something rather unusual. An RCA roundie table TV as part of a custom made shelfing unit. It was a 1964 model CTC-16, gold metal cabinet set. Very rarely do I see this type of thing and in the past, the TV was considered to be "part of the house" and was not for sale. I got lucky on this one and the TV was for sale. Why shouldn't it to begin with, right? It was all wired into the outdoor antenna still, plugged in and it still worked with a good bright picture, so its obviously a low hour TV. One of the guys helping with the sale pulled it off the shelf part way so I could detach the antenna and power cord and then helped me load it into my truck. Being in a shelf like it was, the TV was well preserved in mint condition. This is the first time I picked up a true table model roundie. They wanted $50 for it, so thats what they got. It looked really neat in that old shelving unit though, like it was right out of a 1960's Ad.

I then went to another sale not too far away from the last one, at 443 Fisher St. in Munster, IN. It was a estate sale of a condo, which normally means nothing too old as far as TV's due to limited space. I was shocked to see yet ANOTHER vintage table TV! This time its a 1969 RCA CTC-38 on the factory cart STILL IN THE LIVING ROOM! That almost never happens. They must have watched little TV as it still works with a bright picture. This one was priced more appropriately considering the general public opinion on old TV's. It was $5.00. They must have watched little to no TV as the TV still works with a bright picture. I noticed the purity wasn't too good though. I pulled the back off when i got it in my truck just to see what condition it was in. It actually still had all original RCA tubes in there, even the 6GH8's. They will need to be replaced as the TV had no color as I was able to pull in a few low powered stations off the antenna.

This must be vintage table TV month. I don't think I've ever run across so many like I have in the last 2 weeks.



























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[andy]

000

[DaveWM]

those are some nice scores! congrats!!

[InstaView]

I think that 1969 RCA is almost the one I grew up with. Ours was in a cabinet and had a 23" screen. I have been looking for that one! I believe my parents got ours in 1968.

Can you post a close up of the control panel and the color controls.

Much Thanks..

[RobtWB]

Amazing finds you have had in the past few weeks!
That '69 RCA / cart combo is a beauty.
I try to make as many estate sales as I can, but never find vintage sets of that quality.
Location must be the key.
I probably have to see 50 or more woodgrain/ bpc/ spc sets before I see one "vintage" set, and then the vintage is usually the early '80's.

Again, simply amazing finds.
Congratulations!!!

[radiotvnut]

Extremely nice finds!

That CTC38 looks like the ones my elementary school had during the '80's. They were connected to Sony U-matic tape machines on roll around carts.

[bgadow]

Really, Doug, these are the good old days! How much longer can this last? That 16 is a great find. Ashame that it has to leave that wall unit.

[Sandy G]

You lucky #!!*% !!...I doubt if there's ANYTHING remotely close to that kind of a score down 'round here...If there is, I've never seen it...

[kx250rider]

NICE find on that metal CTC-16! There were a ton of those in the upper income areas of Los Angeles in the 80s, but were practically all gone and replaced by the 90s. You NEVER see that cheap painted version either! I've probably only seen 2 or 3 total, as compared to 100s and 100s of the woodgrained metal cabinet CTC-16s.

Charles

[freakaftr8]

Man Doug. Great finds!! Makes me miss my CTC-16. Weep. Lol. Asked my wife if she wanted to move to Chicago. Of course I got a big "NO"! Lol

[Jeffhs]

Wow, Doug, you're sitting on a gold mine there in Chicago.

I live in a very small town (population 3215) outside the Cleveland area, where people seem to have either already gotten rid of their old TVs or may never had one older than five or ten years. I've been here ten years and have seen only two vintage TVs in the trash, one '80s-vintage RCA b&w 12" portable the year I moved here and a 1978 RCA console a year or two later, not to mention two vintage stereo consoles about a year ago just down the street from my apartment.

Honestly, I saw more old TVs, vintage 1950s-'60s and mid-late '70s, in the trash (mostly Zeniths, but other makes showed up every now and again) in my old neighborhood in Wickliffe, Ohio (east suburban Cleveland) than I see here. The popularity of Zenith TVs in my hometown was very likely due to the fact that there was a Zenith dealer (East End TV and Appliance) not far from my home at the time (1960s-'70s). The dealer left town, however, a couple of years ago and moved to another Cleveland suburb; I don't know if he's still there.

[drh4683]

Thanks all,

The plain metal cabinet ctc-16 is indeed a rare one for me. I opened it up just to take a look in there today and noticed it was service in 1966 and again in 1970 per the repair tags. The chassis got pulled and brougth to "O'Briens TV" in chicago both times. Original name and address on the tag from where I bought it.
A little bit of hackage went on in there. The circuit breaker popped and someone rigged up a fuse in its place and just ran wires from under the chassis and wrapped it all in a wad of electrical tape just sitting on top of the chassis. It also has the dreaded oily mess on the bottom of the cabinet from the deteriorating lens seal of the 21FBP22. Needless to say, it will need to get pulled apart for a detail cleaning and proper repair. Im surprised yet again to find another TV with all original tubes except the horizontal output.

Also, the CTC-16 tube layout sheet thats glued to the HV cage is gone. Looks like it just cleanly fell off when it was being handled by the TV shop. Does anyone have a good clean one available? A PDF of one even works, I can scale it to fit and print it out.

[zenithfan1]

Those are some nice sets! That 16 is awesome, I've never seen a gold one. One fine tv I say, almost sexy. I want the house it came from