Look at what happened to my old Zenith.....
 

I traded this set to another VK'er and this is how it is now http://detroit.craigslist.org/okl/fud/2347407610.html
I spent 40 hours restoring this set. All it needed to get the color right was a tweak to the burst amp but........oh well! I guess they thought this was a better fix????

wow how irritating. This is why I dont let anything go, at least I havnt yet. If anyone is going to trash it its going to be me.

Mark. I didn't know you were going to get rid of it. I was looking for a roundie Zenith at the time I saw it. Dave.

That is just about the only 60s roundy I would really like to have! What a shame. :tears:

Man, that really sucks, what a waste.

with you on that one.i guess when its yours you can do as you please,but this hurts to see!

Ask if they still have the guts.

How disappointing that the situation turned out this way especially to an upright roundie...

And buy the set and put it back together!

That reminds me of something that a man named Jim Fred used to say about old radios--of which I suspect MANY of us also collect. In maybe 1979 or 80, in his "antique radio corner" column in "elementary electronics magazine--Jim spoke that as collectors we DO have an OBLIGATION to try and preserve as many of the old radios as we can and that we should NEVER "waste on" by "converting it" to a modern solid-state radio, or junking it--unless of course it is " Too far gone to save" in which case it's "heart and soul" should be preserved to save other radios.

I was only about 12-13 when he wrote that, and did not really fully understand what he meant by "we have an obligation to the generations that have not yet been born yet--to preserve these things--or they will NOT ever really know "what was". At the time--digital was JUST beginning to make heavy inroads into electronics, the CD was being perfected, and digital tuning was starting to become common on tv's and radios.

Now, over 30 years later--the same thing applies to OUR tv's radios, stereos and such. As Jim pointed out--"it is yours, and you DO have the "right" to do what you want with it--you SHOULD feel an "obligation" NOT to destroy or "modernize it". This is the way I--and many of us--feel about our stuff.

Jim went as far to say" we should ALSO strive to REPAIR all of our finds too" and many of us have not--but at LEAST--we should try to "house and protect them" until we--or SOMEONE ELSE--WILL restore them to their "former glory."

I always enjoyed Jim Fred's writings. He had his own newsletter, if I remember right, which I subscribed to in the mid-80s when I started collecting. (I was also pretty young) I seem to recall him saying the same thing in one of them.

It hurts to see this happen to the Zenith. I guess I'll leave it at that.

Well, there is an outside chance that the old picture tube failed, like open heater or the vacuum leaked out. Or some such fatal failure, in which case the evildoer decided to reuse the cabinet to hold more modern guts... If it were me, I'd try to keep the tuner functional, say having it feed its IF output signal into the modern guts' IF strip.

And no, I'm not the one.

I've inquired about it a couple weeks ago, the VK'er who shall remain nameless because I'm nice for some reason threw the chassis away and sold the picture tube. I wanted to get the set back as long as the 26KC20 chassis was still around as I have a tube and glass for it. But it just aint worth my trouble as it is. Sad but oh well, that's what happens if you sell or trade something. A lot of this will happen after we're gone so I'll just have to get over it and keep searching for the real early stuff that's worth the time and effort. I simply don't have the resources to spend on this one as it will cost more than the set's worth. I would like to see someone try to save it though, someone much closer than I

Here's what it USED to be like.......http://videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=170055

I really wasn't looking to get rid of it. It was the ONLY thing I had that he was willing to trade me for the '57 Sylvania "the Saratoga" plus some $$ but oops:D I may have let the cat out of the bag on who dunnit.

Not far enough out of the bag, can you give us some more hints? :yes:

Nothing in the rules that say we can ban someone for gutting a TV, shun, curse, practice Voo Doo on, yes, ban no. :D

That sucks, but you can't save everything. I've recently sold or parted a lot of sets, I'm tired of just having a hoard of busted tvs around I'd probably never get to repairing anyway. Oh, and just to be clear, it wasn't me!

I figured it out - what do I win?

I can't believe someone did that to such a rare set.My condolences,Mark.

I wonder if the user will post on this thread that did this??

Thats how most ppl are,they dont wanna bother fixing something thats old,THEY INSTEAD REPLACE IT WITH NEWER GARBAGE!!

Quite sad.........

Well, Eric, he lives in Troy, Mi and his name starts with "C" :D

It took a lot of guts to pull off that stunt.

I am surprised and appalled that a member here could make such a poor choice in destoying something so very special but I am being nice too to not care who it is.
I called the current seller who seems very nice and told him someone may want to buy it to put guts back in it. He said the guy he got it from was looking for the guts too? He also said it was used in some movie? Perhaps the member here that bought it had to get it working for some film production?
I am mostly surprised and disappointed he was not thinking well enough to save the chassis. Does not make any sense. I hope someone got the CRT as reported.

Man!,I really can't believe someone here would do something like that to your beautiful Zenith.
Hopefully nobody will sell or trade anything they prize to that guy in the future after seeing how your set wound up.

Anything can be fixed,it's just a question of time and money,just because a set quits working doesn't mean it should become a shell for new electronics.

And you are the only member on his VK friends list. I'd ask to be taken off.




.

http://videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=246227

Even has a nice video

But it looks like he may try and do the right thing.....? sometimes?

http://videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=249168

Let me immortalize this
http://justsmog.com/Clay/zenithre2.jpg

Well, all might not be totally lost. For $65 (or less) you get a very nice looking black metal cabinet with knobs and perhaps other Zenith stuff still inside that is extremely rare. AND you might take a more common el cheapo Zenith ratty cabinet console with a good insides. Get my drift??? I recommend you go after it! NOW!!!!!!!!

Look again, it also comes the seldom found matching base to set it on. Think I'll go after it.

saw the video.how close this set was to being perfect.heartbreaking to say the least.one hour of adjustments and it could have been saved.a zenith roundie in an upright cabinet.at a loss for words

It is a royal shame that this happened. If I was in your shoes I'd be half tempted to steal back...Errmm I mean rescue the other sets I traded, and anything else that I coulden't stand seeing fishtanked while there.:mad::scratch2:

I'd buy the cabinet if I lived nearer. If folks have pieced CT-100s together from scratch then it should be mutch cheaper and easier to find and get a chassis, CRT, neck hardware, back, and anything else I forgot to mention.

Tom C.

AHHH.... makes me sick!

Why doesnt this member speak up??

I was the first to piece together a CT-100. I think that I was bidding against John Folsom for the channel knob on eBay about 10 years ago. Imagine the seller's surprise when it sold for about $130 :D

Well.......I'm speaking up and giving my side of the story.

The Chassis had several issues and eventually suffered catastrophic failure. It started with severe arcing in the HV cage as a result of a deteriorating compactron socket, I replaced that and the fried resistor. Later a chassis fire finished it when a poorly insulated re-stuffed electrolytic can exploded and set wiring on fire under the chassis, There was a tar substance build up under there that may have aided in the fire spreading. So frustrated with the problems, the burst amp, compactron, picture never looking very good, etc... I gave up on the chassis. Yes I agree it was a poor decision to put modern guts in the set and I deeply regret that choice. My brother passed away at 44 yrs in excellent health recently and the vintage stuff just didn't seem as important to me at the time. I did however keep the Picture tube, yoke, flyback and all mounting etc.. the original back, tuner, volume on/off is still there too. Saturday I drove over to the resale shop and bought the TV and brought it home. I will put it back together as original as possible. I've already removed the modern guts and CRT. Just to be clear I'm not a "Fish-Tanker" I've made one bad decision here but have saved and restored dozens of tube radios, record players, b/w TV's, Jukeboxes and tape cartridge machines so please don't judge me on one regrettable mistake. I do care about these vintage treasures and will continue to help keep them out of the landfills. My house is full of working Tube radios, TV's, Jukes etc.. that I have properly restored to original working condition. Look at my YouTube videos to see my past and present collection, username: wurly1100.
What else can I say.... I'm sorry.



Jim

why are you apologizing for junking a useless chassis - good grief it is only an old television - some are just not worth saving - even though they be a round screen color set - from what you describe looks like this set had its share of hack repais anyway

:saywhat: What in God's name are you sorry for? I would have probably dragged it out onto the driveway and let the whole p.o.s. go up in flames.

I think if anyone is owed an apology it's you, for all the conclusions that were jumped to without knowing all the facts.

My apology is for nearly "fish tanking" the set which is frowned upon, I should have searched for a replacement chassis which I will now do. Hopefully I can get the set working again and on prominent display in my home.

I forgive ya (sory for the bashing I dished out).
Back before I collected,(and even twice after) I scraped things that I now wish I had saved. We live and learn I guess.

If that chassis did not get tossed ya might be able to save it. Incuctors, transformers, and some hardware are the only unobtainium on most TVs so if you replace the blown can, cooked wireing, and any other casualties, then it should work again.

If you really don't want to fix it, but want to set things right and still have all the parts from it before blew, then you could sell it to me. I like a good challenge.

Tom C.

Post it up in the classifieds, I'm sure someone would be willing to put humpty dumpty back together again.

It's rewarding to know when things make an impact.
 

I was catching up with this thread and read how Jim Fred's antique radio column in *Elementary Electronics* was remembered by at least two of you after more than 35 years.

I was Technical Editor of *Elementary Electronics* back when Jim Fred wrote his columns.

He had written a modest article about the hobby that caught fire with a contingent of our readers. I got flooded with positive mail from enthusiastic readers. It was clear from my own passion for preserving a CT-100 that an important subset of our readers were vintage radio enthusiasts, and so we hired Jim as a regular columnist.

Elementary Electronics folded some years after I left to join TAB BOOKS, but not Jim's column; it was picked up by Larry Steckler at *Radio-Electronics* where Jim's love of collecting lived on.

Pete

A lighter side of fishtanking
 

(True Confessions of a recovering fishtanker)

...my operational CTC2 chassis was driving the RACS-rebuilt 15GP22 for a year at the ETF museum, and so my cabinet was bare.

Undaunted, I stuffed a $110, China-built, RCA-branded, ATSC, 8-1/2 by 11-in. CRT set into my empty CT-100 cabinet.

Built a 5.1 sound system around it.

Kept it a secret till now.

Humbly yours,

Pete

Hell Pete,

Perfect place for a real fish tank until you get the chassis back. Lol.

-Steve D.