1950s or '60s vintage Zenith TVs, Need some info
 

Hello everyone, on Monday I have the opportunity to pick up a couple of 1950s or 1960s Vintage Zenith B & W TVs for $120 for the 2. one of them is the famous "Bug Eye" model TV from the late 1950s and the other is an early to mid 1960s vintage metal cabinet 19" B & W Tabletop model that says "All Channel" on it.

My questions are, is the price I'm paying for these TVs fair, and what kinds of things should I look out for when trying to restore these TVs? And what time period are these TVs from (I'm just guessing on the time period, and I'm curious as to whether or not I'm close to the correct time period.)

Also if I for some reason needed to only buy one set over the other (which is an option with this person too) which set would be more worth my money restoring?

Any help or info on these TVs would be appreciated.

See Pictures below, which are taken from the original Facebook Marketplace posting.

Hi Vortalexfan, the bugeye is 1950s and the newer one is 1960s, so you are spot on with your age assesment. In my opinion, $120 for both isn't too bad, considering how little $100 is actually worth these days, If I were looking for more TVs to restore I wouldn't balk at paying $60 for each of them :thmbsp:

I think $120 is a bit high. Somewhat depends on how much you like them.
The 1960s model would not be as valuable as the older model. The 1950s model is missing a knob which could be hard to find.
It is always a good idea, especially when dealing with someone who does not know how to value vintage electronics, to see if he will take less. Say you will give $ 80 to take it off his hands, after pointing out the problems with them.

50's set has more value , the 60's set will have a superior image

If I'm not mistake the Bugeye's color is a very deep maroon, very nice looking set when cleaned up. Fair warning on cleaning those front knobs, the markings wash off very easily with something as mild as Windex. Probably best to be safe and dry wipe or brush them off. The sellers asking seems kind of high for the Midwest. Suppose it depends on your local market and how many collectors respond to such ads. Around here it's very much a buyers market.

Also don't turn them on again until they have been gone through.

Unfortunately the guy already turned on the Bugeye set already and it showed a picture with a partially collapsed Vertical and a partially collapsed Horizontal (it looked like a pentagon on the screen).

As for the price I tried to talk him down and $120 was as low as he would go for both of them unfortunately, and sadly enough in my area people take these old TV sets and make fish tanks out of them, and I was hoping to save them from that fate.

They usually make fish tanks or pet beds out of consoles.
I don't think anyone is going to break down their door to buy them for that kind of money.

You remember my Meck Philharmonic? That TV was about to get made into a fish tank had I not came along and bought it, that's what the lady I bought it from told me, so yes, they do make fish tanks out of tabletop units as well...:thumbsdn:

I think I'm just going to get the Bugeye TV for right now, and see if I can make a deal with him to let me buy the other Zenith TV when I get paid this coming Friday. The Bugeye TV is definitely older and more interesting than the other TV, plus the "Bugeye" TV will go well with my Zenith "Bugeye" Clock Radio. :thmbsp:

Well a little update, unfortunately the guy wouldn't budge from his $120 price for the TVs and he wouldn't even settle for me buying the Bugeye first and then the other one on Friday when I get paid because in his words "they are heavy and he wanted to sell them both at the same time", also he said that if I wouldn't of taken the two TVs at the $120 price he was going to sell them to a lady that was going to make them into fish tanks (so no Dave I wasn't exaggerating when I said that they were going to be made into Fish Tanks.)

So I will be getting them both on Monday and I will be paying $120 for them, at least it will save them from being made into Fish Tanks.

Those bugeye sets can perform well when restored. Here's an article about my T1816R:

https://antiqueradio.org/zen28.htm

Regards,

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

The larger set is a 23 (22) inch screen set with non remote power tuning.

A trapezoidal or vertically-tapered raster is almost always from a bad yoke.

Boy I hope that's not the case, otherwise that Bugeye TV is just going to be a paperweight, as I doubt I'd be able to source a proper yoke for that TV.

The picture of the Zenith Bugeye TV powered on is posted in the first posting on here, its the very first picture in my first post in this thread, could you tell me if the picture that is being produced by the aforementioned Zenith Bugeye TV is indeed a failed Yoke or if its something else?

Vortelexfan, the TV your interested in is NOT displaying the classic trapezoidal raster associated with a shorted yoke, it is displaying the symptom of a badly failed vertical deflection circuit. To have a trapezoidal raster you must first HAVE a raster(a fully lit CRT screen) which that TV does not have due to the failed vertical circuit. Once the TV is displaying a proper raster only then can things like a trapezoidal raster be seen. If, after the vertical deflection is restored you end up with a pie shaped picture then you can go with the presumption of a shorted yoke, but at least get a fully lit screen before you go buying any yokes :thmbsp:

Deleted.

The sreep camera angle may be may be what's causing the raster to appear tapered. Is there any chance of seeing how it looks from face-on?

Unfortunately the owner of the TV's is out of town until tomorrow, and those pictures I posted were the only pictures he had of it.

When I was messaging the guy about the TVs and trying to see if he would budge from his price, I told him that I would like to see the TVs in person before I dropped $120 on them because of the fact I didn't want to get burned on something that wasn't as pictured.

It was kind of frustrating that he wouldn't budge from his price at all because he said that the bigger Zenith was in untested/unknown working order, which I tried to use that fact in the bargaining of the price, but he insisted on $60 a piece, even though I offered him what I thought was more than a fair price for the bigger Zenith considering it was in unknown working order (I had offered him $40 for that TV which is more than generous for a TV that is in unknown working order.)

Unfortunately he used a threat of "If you don't take the two for $120, then I have two other people who are more than willing to pay that including a woman who was going to make them into fish tanks" to keep his price.

I had initially messaged him about the Zenith Bugeye TV, and that he only wanted $60 for, but then, he messaged me later on saying he had another older Zenith "For Sale" and he sent some pictures of it in messenger (in this case only two pictures and they weren't very good pictures because they didn't even show the back of the TV) and said that it was "untested" and then said that I could have that one too if I wanted, and I said how much and he said "shoot me an offer" and I did which I said "how about since its working condition isn't know why don't you just throw it in with the price of the other TV" and he said "Nah, I can't do that" and so then I offered him $25 again citing the fact that the TV is in unknown working order, and he said "that's too low" and that's when he said "$120 for both" and I said "can you do $80 for both?" and he said "nope $120 or its going to some lady who is going to turn them into fish tanks" and that's when I agreed to the price.

The part where he said he was "out of town until Monday" (and this was this past Wednesday) kind of scares me a bit, because when I tried asking him when where he wanted to meet up for me to get the TVs from him, that was when he said "I'm out of town until Monday".
Which I'm hoping that isn't a sign that he's nothing more than a scammer.

I say that because there has been for about 3 months now several listings on Facebook Marketplace from a local guy who supposedly has a storage unit full of 1930s-1950s vintage Console Radios for sale between $10-$150 depending on the make and model, and he said he had Stewart-Warner, Zenith, Stromberg-Carlson, Silvertone, Philco, Wards-Airline, Farnsworth, Capehart, etc.
So I messaged the guy asking him for specific model numbers of some of the radios, specifically the Stewart-Warner, Zenith, Stromberg-Carlson, Farnsworth and Capehart units, and he never messaged me back and that was over 2 weeks ago.

The weird part is that when I look at the conversation/message I sent to this guy, the listing says "the item has been removed by the seller" which makes me think that those listings are scams, and because of that, I'm hoping that isn't the case with these Zenith TVs.

My guess is that (from my previous experience with older TVs like this that i've worked on so far which is 2 TVs that I've successfully repaired/restored, and one that I gave up on and passed onto another member who lives locally) maybe a bad vertical output tube or some bad caps in the vertical stage, the reason why I suspect a bad vertical output/oscillator tube is because two of the 3 TVs I've worked on so far (a Philco Townhouse TV from 1962 and an RCA TV from the same time period) both had failed vertical deflection and they both used the same Vertical Output tube which is a 6DR7 Tube and in both of those sets that tube failed (and from what I've read, that tube is notorious for failing prematurely because it was driven hard in those TVs, and also because it wasn't a well designed tube to begin with.)

Pass on those sets. The seller is a D-bag and a phony.
That POS 23" table model isn't worth much. The least thing, he could have done is clean the dirt off.
The 17" table model is hard to restore because of the design. It has to be disassembled completely. :thumbsdn:

In every shorted-yoke case I've seen (in 30+ years in the trade), the raster was shrunken both vertically and horizontally in addition to the taper.

In the photo of the Bug Eye however, the frame begins with a bright line at full horizontal sweep, then abruptly transitions to about 1/2 horz sweep during the remainder of the vertical scan.

Dunno what else could be "modulating" the H scan in such a manner. Maybe some vertical leakage getting into the grid of the horz output tube:saywhat:. My bet would still be on the yoke.

Well I'm going to message the guy one more time and see if I can get a meeting place out of him, if not then I know it a scam. Interestingly enough I bought an EICO Model 232 VTVM for $10 from someone on Facebook Marketplace the other day and the unit was just as it was pictured and was actually legitimate, I aslo bought an 1850s vintage 1/2 Column clock for $80 and that one was also as it was pictured so, there are legitimate postings on there, but it appears that they are the exception and not the rule.

Hi Phil, how common are the "All Channel" versions of these Bugeye Zeniths? I'm asking because the one you have (and other examples of this particular TV I've seen are VHF Only and the one I'm hopefully going to be picking up is a UHF/VHF "All-Channel" model.

I had a Zenith from the same year! It looked the same as that one. It was made in the later part of 1955. It had the same ugly knobs as the one shown. The later production had the newer, better looking knobs.
Mine had UHF, as Milwaukee was a UHF market from early-one.
Most of the sets sold there were UHF equipped.

Hi Dave, I sent the guy a message asking about a meeting place for the TVs, and he hasn't responded back yet, but if his story is to be believed, he might be driving right now and can't respond right now.

As for the 23" unit when they say its a "remoteless motorized tuning" does that mean it actually has an electronic tuner in it but just no remote control, or does that mean it could have a remote with it? Im kind of confused about that, and would of the remote of been one of those ultrasonic remotes (Space Command 400 remote), or would of it been a wired unit?

It's just a motorized channel selector with a regular turret tuner.
Zenith also made some color sets with that feature.

So basically if I'm understanding correctly there should be a channel up and down button on the set somewhere and you push one of those buttons and it will engage a drive motor that will cause the tuner to change the channel up or down? That's kind of cool, I've never worked on or owned a TV like that before, that would be neat.

If you lucky there will be channel up and down buttons, but if it's anything like the motorized remote control "Space Command" 1962 Zenith I've got, the tuner only runs one way, up. As in , each push of either the channel button on the remote or the channel button on the TV advances it one channel. If your on channel 7 and want to go to channel 5, you must toggle it around the dial through all the channels after 7 till you reach 5, with no down function to easily go from 7 to 6 , and then to 5 :sigh:

So how does the UHF band work on these TVs? I'm asking because the one I'm getting covers both VHF and UHF.

It could easily be caps causing that weird picture. My bugeye (slightly different model) had a really weird raster intermittently before recap and was fine after the recap.

Well that certainly seemed to be the case with my Meck TV, so hopefully that's the case with the Zenith Bugeye.

Mine does not have UHF, and I've not run across one that has it so I don't know how they do that. Were I forced to offer a guess, my guess would be that the VHF tuner is motorized, and the UHF is tuned manually.

You can program them to stop on U, and watch whatever the UHF tuner was set to. Nothing fancy.

The UHF tuner is on the side of the set, to satisfy the intent of the FCC, to provide all channel reception. The older models had UHF strips.
I disabled the off function on the one button remote sets, as it's not really good for the set, the surge.

I've got a late 70s 19" ultrasonic Quasar that has an elegant solution to the surge issue. There's a delay relay (or circuit haven't opened it or looked at the sam's) on the power off position so that if you are just trying to work your way around it'll stay on, but if you linger on the OFF position long enough (2-5 sec IIRC) it'll power off.
EDIT I just found another cool feature in that set...If it can't detect sync pulses (station sign off, or VTR that isn't producing usable video) it'll power off in 10 seconds.

If I were worried about the surge I'd probably try to implement the quasar approach.

Well I'll be hopefully picking up the TVs tomorrow. The guy that's selling the TVs actually seems legitimate because he wants to meet at the Polce Station which is someplace that I've heard suggested many times for meeting someone
at that you plan to buy something from when you are buying something locally from someone on sites like Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace.

Well I got the TVs! :yes: :thmbsp: But boy are they heavy! :yikes: Especially the 23" unit, which turns out is a Remote controlled unit, because it has a switch on the back to disable the remote control amplifier/pickup inside the unit.

One odd thing about both of these TVs is that they both used the safety Interlock plug which is intact on the back cover but it also had a short length of zipcord dangling out the bottom of both units with a short length of wire stripped back on both leads, what was the purpose of that? Some way of bypassing the Interlock plug for the serviceman? :scratch2:

OK, so a little update: I took the back off the Bugeye TV and it seems to be a high hours set, because it doesn't have any of the original Zenith Branded tubes left in it, and it seems that it also has the typical Zenith "Crumbling Yoke" issue, and the zipwire that was coming out the bottom of the TV is actually an external speaker connection that someone added later on so that they could hook the TV up to a HI-FI System.

As for the 23" Zenith, it seems to be a low hours set because all of the original Zenith Branded Tubes are still inside the set including the original picture tube, it too unfortunately is suffering from the "Crumbling Yoke" issue, but not as bad as the Bugeye TV was, this TV also had the same zipwire dangling from the bottom of the set, which was also an external speaker hookup, just like in the Bugeye, but they unplugged the speaker connection from the output transformer on this TV which I'm hoping didn't ruin the Output Transformer by not having a speaker load attached to it.

The cool thing is that they used a 6BQ5 output tube on this TV which means it was a pretty loud set.

It is not a Remote set like I thought it was, it was just capable of being one (the opening for the switch that was for disabling and enabling the remote chassis was blank, but had an area behind it in the cabinet where one could of installed a remote receiver if one chose to have it equipped with one, which is what the switch opening was for.)

It does have motorized tuning but it doesn't appear to have any way to activate it (no buttons to activate the motorized tuner), there is a manual tuning knob on the back of the set, but I'm not sure what that is for.

The manual knob on the back of the set is for use when the motorized tuning mechanism dies on you.