That's right, after much searching and waiting, one finally came my way!
This one was strange, I threw down a bid on it while it was listed on Epay. I was quickly outbid, and thinking nothing of it moved on to search greener pastures. After all, a local pawn shop still has one but wants a mint for it. Then about 2 weeks later I got a notice from the seller: second chance offer, due to unpaid bid! Long story short they accepted my original bid, as it was the next one in line after the winning bid. So I had won the set for $200, but it was in California and I'm in Virginia...
Enter Steve Kissinger, who lives not far from the location of the auction. He volunteered to ship it for me, with a little bit of help from Steve Dichter picking it up. The pair of Steves helped me out big time, the set arrived in 2 gigantic boxes safe and sound earlier this week.
Best news is the 7DP4 CRT: it was a rebuild so I had my doubts, but it tests like it's never had HV on it. It was probably rebuilt during the period the chassis was going through some attempted restoration and never used, as evidenced by a note with the chassis that it had undergone repairs in the mid 80's.
Plan right now is to clean up the chassis, replace all the power caps, variac it and see where it's at. Meantime the cabinet will go off for restoration, where no money will be spared in bringing it back to former glory. This was one of the more rare blonde cabinets, and I intend to bring it back that way. I do admit to liking the darker ones more, but I'm going for originality on this one. I will need to have the front piece fabricated as it's gone missing, anyone have one they can mail me so I can take some measurements?
Enjoy the pics of the process!
