Roundie Horror
 

Folks, I was at an auction on Saturday and while cruising through the house, I found a nice Zenith Roundie upstairs. It was the only thing in the room. Figuring what the heck, I plugged it in and got nothing but an overheating rectifier tube for the ten seconds that it was on. I inquired about it, was told that it wasn't for sale, but that with the blessing of the owners they would put it on the block for me.

Now, this was an old radioman's estate, so I was busy bidding on all sorts of old electronic crap and was getting pretty loaded down. My girlfriend had to go off into the house while they did a second auction for the furniture (with the tv). Well, the radio auction ended early as everything was only going for less that a dollar (with me the high bidder). So they let me have the whole heap for five bucks. At about that time, the girlfriend came out and said we had the Zenith for fifty cents!

Now for the horror part: the house went up for sale at that point, and with only one bidder, it sold pretty fast. Sixty grand for a three floor Victorian with three garages on two acres. Now the house was in bad shape, and on this very rainy day, water submerged the attic, flooded the second floor, and drizzled on the first floor. Regardless, the couple that won it declared that everyone get off the property ASAP, that they were going to move in that day. They had won most of the furniture, so they just loaded it all back up into their damp house. I tried to explain that it was going to take some time to get the tv down the stairs, and they said I had five minutes.

Before getting too pissed off, I took one last look at it. The tube had a brightener on it which I hadn't noticed. In fact, I don't think I would have started the whole mess if I knew it had. I pulled the brightener, some tubes, and left. I just wasn't ready to argue with someone who was willing to live in a flooded house.

I came back later to pick up a few radios that I had left out front and saw that new owners were busy filling a dumpster out front. Yep, the roundie was there, though pretty intact, along with a few console radios that had been in the rain the last two days. I hopped in, took the globe tubes from the radios, and said goodbye to my so briefly owned roundie. Maybe it still could have been saved, but the heavy rain had already waterlogged the cabinet on an already too heavy tv. I had carried so much gear that my arms just wouldn't work anymore.

Im so sorry to hear that man, but look at the good side, it could have been a dud... The tube could have been shot and if it's had plenty of rain on it, the cabinet could have been shot including alot of water damage. I have been in similar situations. I had a garage door fall apart in my garage onto my mint (was) 69 RCA CTC-38. Crushed the set.

Bad things just happen to good people I guess. But again sorry to hear, I share your pain.

I can't really complain. I drove off with several carloads of radio gear. It just happened that this was the type of roundie that I have been looking for. Since this house had been a tv repair shop, I'm gonna say the tube had to have been pretty blown away for the owner to put the brightener on it, when he could have just carried his crt tester upstairs (he had at least two of them) and rejuvinated it. Only one other tv was in the house- a philco black and white tabletop. I missed that one and it sold for 50 cents.

Freak-did that garage door cause the crt to implode when it hit?

That stinks ! Why are some people just pure Horse's Patoots about situations like that ?!?

Interesting.. Never heard of anything like that.. Seems the house really isn't theirs until the money is paid and contracts all signed? Never heard of it happening the same day of the auction.. but not saying it couldn't happen, but how can you get the title work done and take the title like that?

I'm gonna guess the sale was done all on site. The family was there (which is common as they need to yea or nay the final bid) and they stayed until the house was handed over to the new owners. This auction house had an office trailer in the driveway so maybe the notary work was done there? When the final bid went through, the family had a very flip attitude about what they got for the house, so they were more than eager to be rid of it. I would say they had the house appraised, found a lot of problems, and just wanted to unload it. The leaking roof was not a new thing. The mold from that house has made me pretty sick since I was there Saturday.

Look at the bright side. When the junkmen came for the dumpster they probably got an extra charge for electronics. Just deserts for being asses!

Down here an auction like that would be an all-day long-at least-affair, w/some things prolly still there Monday.

Karma will be at work here! If you got sick from just a brief exposure to the mold in that house, and those people moved in to live there, their health will soon be shot to hades and back. The medical bills will more than outweigh any bargain they made on the house. Excess mold exposure in a damp house can get really unpleasant, very quickly.

Weird that they'd be in such a big a hurry to get everyone out. You'd think if they were going to haul the stuff to the dumpster anyway, they'd give you time to carry it off for them. They could always stand at the door to make sure people didn't remove stuff that they had bought (i.e., steal from them), if that was their worry.

Anyway, on the bright side, congratulations on getting a bunch of radios and tubes. Despite the sad fate of the roundie, it sounds like you did make out well, overall! :thmbsp:

Ditto on that, mold especially black mold being the worst will mess your lungs up for a very long time.. Well all the radio equip you won sounds great. About my set, yes the broken garage door busted the CRT, and the whole topside of the cabinet. That set had a lot of cenimental value to me, as it's the first (and only) TV restore project and that my dad and I did together. We got rid of it around 1990.

Those situations are very frustrating. It's the same feeling as when I found a fairly clean late 40s RCA 10" console here in LA at an estate sale, and the executor's lawyer ordered that no old electronics be sold, touched, or moved since they "have cancer-causing agents", which could cause a lawsuit. I asked what they would do with the set, and the executor complained that the hazmat contractor was charging $6500.00 to remove the TV, an old fridge, and some paint from a shed. Greenies at their finest!!!! (And the lawyer's cronies must have made off with about as much of that estate as legally <or illegally> allowed).

Charles

This story sounds even more disheartening than the original one, IMHO.
Time for a lawyer joke, actually a true story.

A friend of mine had an elder brother who was a lawyer. The lawyer
had an aging battery in his car, so my friend told him: 'I'm gonna lend
you my battery charger so you can get along until you have your battery
replaced'. My friend then proceeded to explain how to use the device,
and he connected the clips to the back of a wooden chair to explain
how it was done, specifying that the red one went to the (+) terminal
and the black one to the (-) terminal, and that he sould leave the
unit connected and powered up for a few hours.

Several days later, the lawyer called his brother to complain that the
charger had not worked to help him get the car started. 'What did
you do exactly', asked the brother. 'Well, I went into the kitchen,
hooked the two clips to the back of a wooden chair, ran the charger
for several hours. After that I went to the garage and attempted to
start the car, but nothing happened.'

May you guys get to the old TVs before the narrow-minded auctioneers,
lawyers and other PITAs.

OMG that is just wrong! LMAO

Considering I work for a lot of lawyers, why oh why can I so easily believe this... :tears:

What's worse is a mechanical engineer turned lawyer.