Very bad news for any collector
 

Well folks, Here's some very bad news for me. Several weeks ago I put an ad in the classified section here to thin out a few of my roundie color sets and those sets were completely destroyed. Last Saturday night (April 11) my main warehouse caught fire and the main building is a total loss. I lost about 11 color sets to include a RCA TM21 color monitor, 1948 SABA projection set with wired remote, Beautiful blonde CTC4, TK14 camera, TK44's, TK45's and about 8 complete TK47 chains and a perfect DuMont CCU to name just a few items. Most of my military radio collection is lost among thousands of other items of antique computers, pinball machines, jukebox, parts and thousands more. I plan to rebuild and house items from my other warehouses. Yes I have insurance but it is never enough.
Yes, I am still sick but will try to recover. It was all over the news here but here is one of several on the internet:

http://www.fireengineering.com/artic...urke-fire.html

UPDATE: A fire inspector let me in the office part and recovered a few items to include 3 each NOS military gensets. (PE162's for the ANG 9 radio systems from 1952) The mil wraps on them was burned off and the canvas covers was burned but the gensets survived quite well, need cleaning and some minor OD green repainted. I also found other valuable items (ruined) that I didn't know was in there and the TM21 RCA monitor was a 1957 model (21 inch-NOT the TM10 which is a 15 inch. (My 15 inch TM10 was in another building) It was totally destroyed as the fire dept sent in a skid steer loader and moved out a lot of debris which was done after I left at around 1:00 in the morning and it destroyed everything it moved out to include a "Funhouse" pinball machine that had a lot of salvage in it. I lost 8 nice pinball machines and much more was lost forever.

Hi
I am sorry to hear about your loss and all that equipment you collected over the years.
Was there any insurance to help cover your loss? I wish you the best in rebuilding your collection.
Mike

Sorry to hear about it..... Hope you are fortunate to find a good number
of your favorite items again.......

.

Damn, Julian, HATE to hear of this... Sure do wish I could help...If I can, please don't hesitate to let me know !

Oh, my! Sorry to hear this, Julian.

Sorry to hear about your fire. Did they figure out what caused it?

Yikes! What a terrible thing to have happen to you....I'd probably be in shock for a month after having something like that happen to me.

Sounds like some good stuff was lost....I wonder if any parts might still be salvageable?

Ouch! Sorry about your loss....... :tears:

Gosh, what a loss. It's good that you had insurance, but money doesn't fully compensate the loss of hard-to-find items.

I was wondering the same thing. Depends on the type of damage, I suppose, but for instance I have an RCA TM-10 monitor in need of a cabinet. Even a fire-scorched cabinet might be usable after stripping & painting . . . .

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

And if the 15GP was not heated to melting, or heated and cooled too fast, or smashed it could still be good.

Is this a "loss" in that the building was burned to the ground, or "loss" in that you aren't allowed in to salvage anything for insurance/safety reasons? I find the latter ridiculous every time I hear it.

It's too bad, less vintage sets in the world..

That's terrible Julian. I'm so sorry to hear this news. Was that the warehouse I visited with you?

Chuck Conrad

Hi Chuck, Yes, that's the one.

Back in '78, I lost a bunch of old color sets in a basement, in a building that burned. There was even a Zenith 29KQ type, their first.
They bulldozed the building on top of the stuff. :tears:

Sorry to hear of your loss Julian. I know from personal experience how devastating a fire can be. I know exactly what you are going through. Fortunately there was no loss of life. Things are just things, but life lost is gone forever.

Wasn't the 29JC the first color?

I think, I made a mistake in the chassis number. I was their first color set with the two 3DG4 rectifier tubes and the real large power transformer. :thmbsp:

Julian, very saddened at your loss. Emotional as can be. Here for you if nothing else to be a good listener.

Yup, the 29JC is the one with the 3DG4s (I've got one). IIRC it was the only consumer color set they made that used tube B+ rectifiers.

I'm so sorry to hear this. There was a lot of history in that building...

I am very sorry to hear of this terrible event, Julian. My home had a fire when I was 12 years old, that started in my bedroom, so I know how bad living through a fire and its aftermath are.

I also have one. Tube is NOT real good on it--red weak and will NOT restore--but does come up with a brightener. I DID have a spare chassis--but is was STOLEN from me when my garage was ROBBED--over 2 years ago. I lost a LOT of my own vintage stuff--including that chassis and lots of others.

I think that is the BIGGEST power transformer i have EVER SEEN in ANY tv set.

RCA's CTC5 and early production CTC7's used 5U4's.
The Motorola TS905 had two 5U4's. The GE 21CL??, used three. The earliest Admirals, Philcos and Westinghouse used them, as well.
Actually, the Philco used a higher current pair of rectifier tubes, 5AW4 and 5V3.
I like using the rectifier tubes in the earlier designs. :scratch2:

Bigger than the transformer this one? :)
http://www.videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=259518

I'm aware of the RCAs use of rectifier tubes in later sets (not so much the other brands though) that is why I said the 29JC was the only set they [Zenith] made that way. I like the use of tube rectifiers a lot better than seleniums, but I think I like silicon power rectifiers a bit better in terms cheapness and simplicity when replacing in the course of restoration.

It is possible the Zenith transformer is bigger I've seen those bakelite admirals before so I have some sense of scale. However the set you posted is a 25Hz power model, and the lower the line frequency the bigger the transformer has to be....If there was a 25Hz Zenith 29JC20 set it's transformer would easily dwarf that admiral transformer. http://i1095.photobucket.com/albums/...ps2skydm6d.jpg

For big power transformers, early DuMont black and white sets with the ferroresonant (constant voltage) power transformer probably set the record.