A sad story: The Zenith combo unit...

[drh4683]

This is the closure of the Zenith combo that was in the Wisconsin Craigslist that Mark (Zenithfan) pointed out on the forum a number of days ago. Per the ad, "The TV needs to be picked up on April 15th at the very latest" or something to that effect.
The TV was in Racine, so I figured I would bite the bullet and save it. Well I sent an email on the 15th and I was told he had moved to Libertyville, IL and that the TV is already gone. He did not get anyone to take it in time and he had the moving company "dispose" of it. I requested for the name of the mover and fortunately he gave it to me. Well, I called the movers yesterday to see if "anyone knew about a guy who moved from racine to libertyville that had a big TV" and where it went. Sure enough, the guy that answered the phone knew all about it. "Yes, its gone" I asked where it is and I was told "Its in the dumpster". Again, looking for more details, I asked when it was put in there. He goes "The day we got it last week it got tossed in, and now its buried".
I asked if I could have permission to come over and dig it out as I wanted to save it with the assumption it wasn't destroyed. "Sure go ahead but at your risk, we close in an hour". That was good as I didn't want anyone around to confront me as to why I was pulling a 40 year old TV out of a dumpster anyway.

So after work yesterday I drove up to libertyville to "sureway movers" a huge place. I see the dumpster and as he mentioned it was loaded up. Looking in the dumpster, I could see the edge of the TV and it was at the bottom. of course it couldn't be just boxes or something simple thrown ontop of it, it had to be construction debris of all things, drywall and wall studs with nails in particular. Of course that just destroyed the TV, crushing the crt and the yoke, including the chassis. The back cover was missing and the poor 20X1C38 was just smashed to hell.
I pulled all of the stuff out that I could as fortunately, the back of the set was facing up. I atleast wanted to see what could be salvaged. I was able to pull the chassis and the tuner.

The cabinet was smoked. The set did have the unique individual UHF channel number read out mechanisem, its a rare tuner and I have in another set of mine but I never had a parts tuner. These are pretty complex with lots of plastic gears and componets, so Im glad that the tuner at least didn't get destroyed as it'll be good to have a parts unit on hand. After removing the chassis and tuner, I cleaned up the mess I created when I pulled all the junk off and out of the way of the TV.

Now that I got a good look at what happened to the chassis, I'd say UPS had a hand in this if I didn't know any better.....

I guess we can't save them all. At least a few parts were saved so it wasn't a 100% loss. Still a shame to see how they get smashed up like this.

[JB5pro]

I am surprised we can find so many. I wonder if there are production figures for these old sets. Like this combo, maybe 500 of that cabinet design in one year? Just guessing.

[ctc17]

wow sad. At least you now have the extra transformers and flyback if it survived. I cant imagine what they had to drop on it to crush the chassis like that.

[zenithfan1]

Can't say I didn't try to get the word out about it. I wish someone would have jumped on it right away. I was about to leave my house to go out to Libertyville to help Doug get it out of the dumpster when he called back and let me know what happened and to not waste my time. Sad indeed. This is what happens when you procrastinate. Hey Doug, at least you got some good parts out of it at least.......

[Sandy G]

Stinks...But we can't save 'em all, I guess. Still stinks, though...

[DaveWM]

that makes me sick.

On a lark I went to a good will today to check out the "auction" they do in the am.

What a zoo, a bunch of bins with lunitics buying them up for god knows why at ridiculas prices.

there was one bin that had a few BPC's.

As I was walking out I could not help but to notice a BIG industrial sized crusher going full tilt on who knows what.

I am just glad I got my Zenith console from some soul that had enough concern for history that he held on to it and passed it along.

[Rental Limo]

The first week of spring clean up already started here, and there was an older tube type Zenith color console on the side of the road. I knew it was tube type because of the green halo on the front of the CRT. Anyways i think it was put on the road Sunday, and when i checked it today the copper smashers got to the CRT.

[zenithfan1]

Did anyone notice this?http://www.earlytelevision.org/class...page.html#free I just spotted it. He really wanted this saved. Too bad it had to end like it did.

[freakaftr8]

How did it end? Are you talking about that Zenith combo?

[zenithfan1]

Yep.

[freakaftr8]

That sucks man, that was a beautiful unit!
Actually, this whole thread is depressing altogether..
Walk away and go hug a set you do have and saved!!!
That helped me.

[zenithfan1]

That's all we can do on this one, at least Doug was able to grab a few parts. It sure was a shame though.......it had the paperwork too........