estate sale finds again, for 2004

[drh4683]

This will be my new tv finds thread from estate sales/resale finds. 2004 got a good start with the first estate sale of the year. I dont get a chance to go every saterday, as I periodically work saterdays. However, I found two very nice sets. First, I found a 1977 Zenith 19" chromacolor II chassis 19JC48. Nice cabinet, its like a woodgrain textured plastic, but all black. Had no pic, simple replacement of the vertical output fuse put it back in perfect working order. It even had the original stand with it. Got it for $5 because it was busted. Nice and clean, couldnt pass it up.
Upstairs in the bedroom was a very nice 1967 zenith 20X1C38 in mint condition. Its a colonial cabinet, but what the heck, I dont have anything like this. They need to be saved too. It was actually playing! I couldnt believe it! It was still hooked up to the outdoor antenna cable. Cost me $30. Brought it home, and did a check up on all the tubes, almost all of them had defects, but not serious enought to mess up the set. After HV adjustment and color touchup, the picture is razor sharp. very pleasing to watch, like the chorma II.

[drh4683]

picture of the chomaII, works really nice. Had to do a touchup on the static convergence.

[drh4683]

Its got a replacement chormacolor CRT that went it 1-7-77. So it took 10 years to kill the original. Seems like CRTs would only get about 10 years of strong use. The tv was well cared for, but used a bit. All tubes were changed over the years. Typical annoying green halo.

[drh4683]

The 20X1C38 is probably the best chassis they ever built. Perhaps its good luck, but of the 3 sets with the 20X1C38 chassis, they all worked near perfect when I found them. Looks like the tech that installed the new crt did a nice job of it, all the wires are tied back together with the factory tie wire etc. This tv was in a good clean enviroment all these years, rust free chassis.

[drh4683]

picture looks as good as new. The color really shows nice on this one. Looks like I need to adjust the blue dynamic for the right side.

[polaraman]

Thought I would also share my first find of the year. Got this Zenith at a thrift store for free. A woman had it in the back of a pick up and was going to donate it. I asked her if I could have it ans she said yes. Her son helped me load it on to my truck. With it not working they would have destroyed the set. Kind of glad I spotted it. Chassis is 25CC50 and it has a 25VAMP22 CRT. It is a tube and transister set. The CRT in the set tests good. Currently the HV is not working. I will have to troubleshoot that this week.

Nice sets posted above. You seem to find some good sets at estate sales. I have found a couple in the past. Not at the rate you are finding them. Good Job!

polaraman

[Charlie]

Nice looking sets, guys!

[drh4683]

Great find polaraman! Thats great you were able to pick it out before the thrift shop got ahold of it. It would have gone straight to the dumpster, even if it worked probably. Resale shops around here "cycle" through the tvs. Basically, it will be on the sales floor for a few weeks, if they dont sell, into the dumpster. Then the next bunch will take their place and so on. TVs are basically impossible to sell at resale shops, as most are non cable ready sets from the 80s with UHF and VHF dial tuners. nobody wants that. I try to go to all the local estate sales every other weekend. WHen I get home from work on fridays, I try to hit the ones I think might be worth it. Thats how I found these two, I went back saterday to pick them up at half price! Lets keep finding them! BTW, the 25CC50 is a 1972 set. It has an IC for the chroma demod. Mostly an all tube set yet, which is good. Let us know how it works out when you start taking it apart.

[Jeffhs]

Doug (drh4683),


I just saw the pics of your latest Zenith finds. They all look as if they are in excellent condition, and the pictures look great as well. It's great when all one has to do is something simple like replacing a fuse or a tube, etc. to get a set working. I restored many an old set just in that fashion when I was collecting them about 30-some years ago. It has been stated, here in this forum, that the only reason old sets were discarded in the '60s through the '80s was, generally, that the owners bought newer sets with larger pictures, more features, etc., not necessarily because the sets were not working. Those which were inoperable for any reason could often be brought back to life by a simple tube or fuse replacement; in some (an awful lot) of these cases the sets had nothing whatsoever wrong with them. Today, it is all too common to see late model Guide Plus RCAs and those troublesome Goldenith or "GZ" (my terms for today's cross between Gold Star and Zenith) TVs coming off GS's assembly lines in Korea (and RCAs coming from Thomson's own overseas plants) on treelawns and curbs the minute something--anything--goes wrong with them after the warranty expires. The glory days and years of once proud U. S. home-entertainment equipment manufacturers such as the original RCA, Zenith and all the other formerly great names in television and radio (Philco, Admiral, Packard Bell, et al.) are now only memories.

BTW: I'm curious. What station, network, etc. is channel 26 in the Chicago area? I ask this because the picture you took off the screen of one of your Zeniths (the one with the Colonial style cabinet) looks like it was from a public-service or educational cable channel; that and the fact that the person in the picture had a smock on that has "Cleveland Clinic" embroidered on it. I now live in a very small town in Lake County, Ohio about 30 miles from Cleveland, but I grew up in the suburbs, so am very familiar with the Cleveland Clinic. What was the connection between it and Chicago in that program?

Good luck with your "new" Zeniths, Doug. I do wonder, though; where on earth are you keeping all those sets?

[Jeffhs]

polaraman,

I concur wholeheartedly with the comments on your latest find. Those older Zenith TVs are great; I've had a few of them in my time, and now collect small Zenith radios (I have one from '51 in my bedroom and a very nice walnut-cabinet AM/FM from '63 atop the refrigerator in my apartment, which both work--and well).

I did not realize, however, that the set you have was the first Zenith chassis to use an IC as the chroma demodulator. I don't know offhand what vintage that set is, but seeing that it has a UHF tuner it must have been made after April 30, 1964. However, as to the chroma IC, I think this was Zenith's answer to RCA's first use of an IC in its sets in the audio circuit, or perhaps it was the other way around, depending entirely on the vintage of your Zenith (RCA introduced the IC-based audio system in one of its small portables in 1966).

[Jeffhs]

Doug (drh4683),

I goofed in my reply to your post; for this I apologize. I just took another look at the pic I mentioned in my last post, that had the doctor with a Cleveland Clinic Foundation smock. I saw the small window at the bottom right corner of the screen of your Zenith TV, and it showed "26" all right--but that was 26 degrees (the air temperature at the time in Chicago, no doubt, as there was a degree symbol following the number), not channel 26 as I had originally thought (and was all too quick to post). I guess I'll just have to be a little more careful from now on as to what I say when I respond to a post, making sure of the facts first.

Good luck, again, with your "new" Zenith TVs. I agree; those chassis, especially the 20X1C38, were, as you mentioned, the best the original Zenith Radio Corporation of Chicago ever made. (I have relatives who have owned and still own older Zenith televisions, made when the company was still in Chicago; the sets are still going strong.)

No offense meant or intended, but today's "Goldenith/GZ" (my term for today's "Zeniths" made by Gold Star) sets cannot now and never will equal, let alone surpass, the quality of those earlier handwired sets. I'm sure I am not the first one to say this; it has been mentioned many times before in posts to threads on sci.electronics.repair and other electronic servicing message boards.

BTW: I have seen the "green halo" on Zenith CRTs mentioned here quite a bit; it's on one of your sets as well. What causes this?

BTW (2): What is the problem with the CRTs in today's Gold Star/Zenith (Goldenith/GZ) TVs? For that matter, are there any other problems with the chassis in these sets (poor construction, bad solder joints, etc.) that has given the new "Zenith" such a rotten reputation?

Thanks for reading.

Kind regards,

[andy]

The green halo is caused by the aging of the material that bonds the safety glass to the CRT. It's similar to the cataract problem common to RCAs. It could be repaired by removing the safety glass and cleaning out all th ebonding material.

The recent Zenith CRTs that failed were made from 1993 to about 1995. From what I saw, they had a 100% failure rate within 2-3 years of normal use. At this time, Zenith was still a company, but LG partially owned the company. The chassis in these sets looked very similar to previous Zenith sets, but performed much worse. HV regulation and the overall look of the picture was much worse for some reason. I think Zenith became completely owned by LG in about 1999. Shortly after this LG closed the Zenith CRT plant. I think LG designs all the sets with the Zenith name now.

From about 1995-1999 the quality of Zenith's CRTs improved a little, but they still had a very short life.

I have to wonder if LG intentionally trashed Zenith so they could buy the name cheaply and not have trouble shutting down all the US engineering and manufacturing.

I personally think Zenith was still making reasonably good products right up to when the CRTs started failing in 1993 just after LG gained a large influence in the company.

[drh4683]

Hey jeff, no problem. That channel you were seeing is channel 32 WFLD chicago. Luckily, we have tons of UHF channels here, so the sets get good use throughout the entire dial. I always felt the 20X1C38 to be one of the better chassis. Ive got alot of zenith sets, with different chassis types. Of the tube type chassis, this one uses the fewest filter caps, no 6BK4 shunt regulator (6HS5 pulse regulator). I have 3 sets with this chassis, they work well.

[drh4683]

Got this 1961 Magnavox B/W console today (432 traube, clarendon hills, IL) for FREE! It was still in the living room! Its hard to immagine the people that lived in that home actually had the same TV in the living room since 1961! It didnt work of course. The estate sale people were actually upset that I wanted to take it on the spot. They had alot of silverware junk on top of it, and the house was jammed with people!
Got it home, got the dust out of it, had an IF and vertical problem. CRT socket needed to be resoldered, needed a resistor in the vertical size circuit to get the picture to extend, and a coupling cap from the 2nd to 3rd IF was open. A bunch of tubes needed changing as well. The interesting part about this set, its a 27" screen! Its HUGE! Never seen a B/w set this big of screen before. Looks nice

[drh4683]

picture looks good now. When It had the IF problem, the raster was blank and you would hear that cool blerping sound from the speaker. Dont know why, always liked that sound. CRT is pretty strong too.