The darker color on the top is a towel, Space is limited in my shop and I have to stack things! That is all that keeps the top from getting all scratched up from my test jig!

Wells-Gardner
 

I was told by someone who worked at Wells-Gardner around 1980 or so that they also made sets for Monkey Wards and Admiral. I don't know if the tube-type Admirals were made by W-G, but the Sears sets and Admirals always seemed a bit similar to me. Maybe it was just me, but I could never get a good picture out of a Sears Silvertone. But then, all I knew how to do was change tubes and adjust the service controls.

Yes, I know what you are saying about the pix quality on those sets! This one is somehow an exception, Maybe due to the low hours. We threw out these sets by the bunches in the late seventies, Customers never wanted them fixed and never picked them up! They never were as nice as the rca and zenith sets we serviced. I personally feel that Zenith made one of the best sets in the world! At least up until the last chromacolor II sets in 1978.
Someone recently dropped off a 1975 chromacolor II (I own an electronics recycling business) It is Still working great, With original crt, Seems like most of them that come in are that way. However, Anything after 1978 from zenith was so-so and almost always has a bad crt.
Dwight.

Here's one of my cool recent scores....a 21" Silvertone color set.

Clean lookin Silvertone! Have you plugged it in yet?

Yup, perfect sound but no show. Rob was over a while ago when I first got it, and we determined there's no HV, some under chassis problem.....most likely beyond my scope.

Dunno whether I'm going to keep it or sell it at this point.

Good to see a round tube on the forum again. Nice clean Silvertone there:p: I always liked the upright styled consoles.

21" Silvertone
 

Tim,

Is that CRT starting to delaminate on the right side there or is that dirt on the outside of the glass?

I've got room for that baby when you don't want to store it any longer. ;)

Rob

Took a closer look....appears to be a spot of dirt on the glass.

Tim,

Phew....That's a relief!...I was really concerned. ;)

Rob

Curtis Mathes Update
 

I took the chassis out of the CM yesterday and found almost as much dust under it as I did on top. There were also two wires that were nearly burned in two and corroded from being up against a 20 watt resistor. After cleaning underneath and fixing the wires, and cleaning the controls, the picture improved quite a bit from when I got it home.

I watched it for two hours, and then had the unpleasant surprise of the damper tube shorting out! :eek: I was glad to see that the circuit breaker worked as it should. After replacing the damper, everything was back in order.

My photo below didn't come out very well, but gives an idea of it. What is it that makes getting shots of the CRT so difficult?

DRH... nice Airline and Zenith! Seems lately that we've been getting a better variety of brands in color sets. :cool:

Zenith 24NC31Z
 

I recently got this Zenith from a friend here in Texas. It has the 24NC31Z chassis (Sams 803-4). Possibly a late-65 model. It plays, but so far no color. The 21FJP has great brightness, and the "green halo" found in many Zeniths... but not too bad. I have the degaussing coils disconnected right now because the disc capacitors on them look very unhealthy!

The cabinet needs a small fix done on the top veneer. The rest of it could probably get by with a good cleaning, but i'll probably refinish it all.

CTC-16
 

Here is a view of my CTC-16 with newly installed CRT. Sorry for the poor picture quality (I need to get a good digital camera). I remember watching Bonanza on a CTC-5 when I was a kid in New York. I thought a rerun on a local channel would be appropriate. I am about to do a sweep alignment and critical convergence. I only spent 10 minutes "roughing" in the setup adjustments prior to this shot. It has been lots of fun and I look forward to finding an Aldrich one of these days!

Harold

Great shot!

Harold,

Great lookin' RCA! :cool:

Harold,

Nice set! Ah, watching AZNANOB in a service mirror while tweaking the controls in the back! ;)

Rob

Charlie,

That Zenith looks sweet! Do all of these have that green tinge that looks like a precursor to cataracts? Mine have it slightly as well! Does anyone know what the deal is on this? Did Zenith get their CRT's from a different manufacturer than RCA at the time?

Rob

Rob:

Zenith had their own picture tube manufacturing facility. The name of the company was the Rauland Corporation. I don't remember its location.

Steve

Rauland
 

Rauland was located in Chicago.

SteveK,

I know of Rauland. They even made their own version of the 15GP22 and were subsequently sued to cease and decist (sp?) by RCA I'd heard. I didn't know that they were an arm of Zenith.

Rob

Originally Rauland was a separate company and was Zenith's vendor for CRT's. When B&W set production exploded in the early 50's, Zenith bought Rauland.

rauland
 

Rauland as you know, was a subsidary of zenith in chicago. Their plant is (still is, but shut down) in melrose park, IL. I live just a few miles away from the plant. I can take a picture of the huge "zenith" sign that displays over the I-294 tollway here in chicago. Too bad though, it does not light up at night anymore since zenith is gone:(

OK, Rob, per your request, here is a snap shot of my New Old Stock '64 Packard Bell color set. As you can see, even in this bad shot, the thing is still pristine new and in fact has never been turned on (Variac time!)

It's model #21CT9-Walnut, basically the same as a 21CT7 (service manual BC-0125 schematic). The color tube is an RCA 21" circular shadow mask kinescope #21FBP22-A, with the separate glass faceplate.

This set was manufactured and assembled at the old Packard Bell factory which was at 12333 West Olympic Blvd. here in Los Angeles. Ah, the good old days....

Neat little showroom stickers still on the screen as you can see . Of course the owners manual and other goodies are still in a sealed bag stapled to the back of the set. :^)

Packard Bell didn't make the greatest color TV's in the world, but this is a neat little artifact from the good old days.

SteveH,

Great collectible! Congratulations. Where did you find this treasure?

Rob

It came from a Detroit store that went out of business in the late '60's and all the stuff put into storage. The grandson of the store owner looked through the stuff (finally) in the mid 1990's and put some of it up for auction. Basically a bunch of old toasters, etc. There was a stereo system and a few TV's, one this Packard Bell.

A TV collector bought it and brought it to Los Angeles, but it started to burn a hole in his mind; one can't watch the set through the stuff on the screen, but one doesn't want to remove the stuff off of the screen either. So, this guy found himself just staring at it, off. Last year he had enough of this stress and put it up for sale. I snapped it up.

Now it's burning a hole in MY mind... :) :rolleyes:

Hey Steve,
The collector's dream. The NIB set. Do I read you right? you've never seen an image on the screen? :confused: I remember the Packard Bell factory very well. Postwar modern building on Olympic as we drove to the beach. Ya, the good old days. And don't ever remove those stickers!!!

I remember that building too. Driving to Pacific Ocean Park (POP) with my folks as a kid!

Steve, come on over and I'll fire it up for ya!

steve,

that is way too cool to have. i can just imagine the itch you get to plug it in! it takes alot of discipline not turn that baby on! must be kinda weird to own a 40 year old set that has never been watched!

do you think the day will ever come?

I couldn't stand the suspense, I would have to try and power it up. :D

If it didn't work though I wouldn't touch it, just leave it in it's Museum quality state.

The stickers are cool, they look as pristine as the set!
It's just unimaginable how something like that survived to this day. Color was so expensive back then you would think someone would have taken this home and used it.

Eric

The set actually looks a lot groovier than that crappy picture I took. Really nice.

It was weird taking off the back and gazing at all those new tubes back there. Just like time travel!

Will I ever fire it up? Sure. One of these days. I have three other 21" sets to keep me happy for the moment though. I just gaze at this one and wonder how NO ONE took this set home at actually watched it. I mean, it's almost 40 years untouched. That's pretty amazing....

vintage color tvs
 

I just found this site I am enjoying it very much. it is nice to know there are other people who do think that old t.v.s, both b.w., and color, are worth saving.

i recently(in early january)acquired a zenith 29jc20 color set. it is somewhat similar to the others i have seen on the site, but is several years older, with two 3dg4 rectifier tubes in the power supply. it dates to 1961 or 1962, and does not have an option for v.h.f. The set is working fairly well, with decent picture and color, but has a vertical problem(probably a cathode bypass cap) and the red gun is a little weak on the 21fbp22. but, it has no cataracts, (it thas a safety plate in front of it.).when i get a little more time, i will restore the chassis fully. i love to see advertisements for internet items on that old, round screen(it seems a little uncanny to me), and i run the set a few hours a week, to keep it from getting stale. this is only the second one of these chassis i have seen in over 20 years of looking,(the last 29jc20 i found was lying behind an old repair garage, and the cabinet was beyond saving. i did save the chassis, though, and it did have a raster, and sound, when i hooked it to a tube 17 years ago. so, i do have a good flyback, power trans, and other parts, if i need them in the future.

i drove over 500 miles to get the set. it was in s.c. i got it for $75.00 i thought it was a good deal, but some people thought i was crazy to take a whole day "just to go get an old t.v. "

anyway, i am glad to join you guys on the site.

Welcome rca2000
 

Jack S,

Welcome to AK! It is great whenever another vintage color TV collector discovers this family here and joins us! It sounds like you have a quite rare Zenith there...and spares too. Got pictures? Don't worry about driving for a day to fetch an old TV. Many here do the same thing without thinking about it. It is part of the disease. ;)

Rob

RCA2000
 

Jack,

You are my new best friend! It sounds like you have the set I've been looking for! ;)

http://audiokarma.org/forums/showthr...&threadid=1275

Sounds like an excuse for a road trip! :D

my old zenith 29jc20
 

well, i checked the picture of the set you had. mine looks a little different, it only has one 5x7" speaker, and the cabinet top does not have a lip on it. otherwise the front ,and controls look the same.

i do not think i want to sell the set. i went to a lot of trouble to get the old girl, and i want to hold on to her. this was zeniths first regular production 21" set, from 1961-62, and i'm sure not very many were made. Most of them probably met their fate when they were dropped into a hopper in a garbage truck, and the compaction plate descended on them, ushering in their burial at a landfill. I am happy to have been able to save this, and some other old color and b.w sets, from such a fate. it brings tears to my eyes to think of how many ctc2's 4.s 5.s 7.s and even 621ts's and so on, ended their lives at some landfill, and not in someones collection.

last year about this time, i found a mcintosh mr-71 tuner in the garbage , just a few houses from mine. i took it home, cleaned a few switches, and tube sockets, and sold it on ebay last july, for $600.00!!, some guy in paris(ugh) bought it, and it probably now resides on a shelf with other vintage equipment.

my screen name, rca 2000, is from the name of a VERY RARE rca color set that i finally got last year, after over 20 years of looking. it has electronic tuning, motorless remote, is fully solid state, from 1969!1 only 2000 of them were made, and probably less than 200 of them are left.

i have some old tube and solid state audio equipment (such as an eico st40, w/tuner and multiplex unit, an eico hf -14 or similar, and a fender vibrato champ CHASSIS ONLY, along with other tube and early solid state audio equipment, like a sansui 9090, and so on. ) i was going to put this stuff on e-bay, but now, maybe i'll give you guys a crack at some of it, first., if anyone is interested.

i don't have a digital camera right now, (money is tight right now) but as soon as i can i'll get some pictures of my old zenith 29jc20 color set ,inside and out, and in operation, on this site.

different cabinet
 

Ahh...

So yours has a different cabinet... the one I was lookin for is the dual speaker model. :( Oh well. Another will come around sometime i guess. And yes, we'd love to see a picture of it once you get a camera!

Zenith 25MC30

Silvertone combo. The TV needs a recap, but plays decently anyway The radio works fine, but the turntable is toast, due to a hack that tried to fix it.

Dave,

I had a Zenith set just like that one that I kicked to the curb last year. The CRT had gone to air, and the cabinet top was in piss-poor condition beyond repair. Humidity had taken it's toll on it, inside and out. I did save the chassis and tuner, however, in case I needed any parts.

Hopefully yours will be a better candidate for restoration.

Charlie,

I enjoyed your website!

Thank you, Steve! I appreciate that! Hopefully later I will be able to make it look a little fancier than it does now.

:tongue: