[drh4683]

There were numerous good finds today at the estates. There were 12 of them that I though were worth attending, but only had enough time to get to 8 of them. Hopefully the other 4 didnt have any TV's..... It was extremely cold here today, it was -8 degrees F when I left at 8:30 this morning and only got up to +5 degrees F at most by afternoon. The sales today were spread all over the chicagoland area. The first sale was far out of my way, but glad I went. It was at 233 Dartmoor Ave in Crystal Lake, IL. Found a 1965 Zenith roundie with the 25MC33 chassis in the french provincial cabinet. It was upstairs in one of the bedrooms which was used as an office. The TV was sitting like you see it with all the stuff on it. It will need some work though. the power cord is missing and the chassis is loose in the cabinet. Like someone tried to fix it but gave up and left the set in peices. It shows some wear and tear but the top is pretty nice yet. I havnt found a zenith roundie for some time at the estates. Have no idea if it works yet, hopefully the CRT is good.
Next TV find was at 6112 S. Parkside in Chicago. I picked up this unique looking RCA XL-100 set with it original pedistal base. the TV is all plastic, even the sides, as is the pedistal. however, the support table of the pedistal is wood! It works OK, but needs some attention.
The next sale after that one was at 4929 Forster Ave, in Schiller Park. It was a two flat and the orignal owner used both living spaces. They even owned another house just like it almost across the alley on another street at 4923 Michigan ave. Both houses were part of the estate sale. At the 4926 house I found one of my favorite sets that Ive been wanting to find. Its a 1966 Admiral 23" color set. Its the chassis that uses the dual 6JM6 horizontal output tubes! the set was preserved as it was in a clean upstairs living room and had a custom made glass top that protected it all these years. It works, but the picture was dim. CRT needs some work, hopefully the cathodes just need reactivation by raising the heater voltage for a while.
I went across the alley to the other house at 4923 Michigan and it didnt look much like a house inside. Everything was tore up and destroyed. Honestly, it looked like the house was vacant for over 25 years. Fortunately, this little '65 RCA b/w console survived in good shape. At first glace, I thought it was one of those ctc-19 mini consoles. I got that set for free, the Admiral cost me $10.00 and got help to bring it down the sprial stair case in the back of the house!
The final sale was the final find for the day. It was at 712 Beverly in Wilmette. Picked up this unique little 12" panasonic color portable from around 1970. Its a "Pana-Color" and is an all tube set. For once I find a nice clean japanese set with intact antennas. 98% of the time, antennas are snapped off on the japanese sets I find. I asked about the price and the guy tells me its broken. I told him Id still like to have it, so he gave it to me for 2 bucks. He told me I could try it out and see if I could figure out what was wrong after I bought it. I waited about a minute and it turned on and worked fine. the guy was old enough to know about tubes in the old sets, but he didnt care, never gave it a chance to warm up!

The worst part about all of this is bringing the sets into the house after being in the zero degree temps. The CRT's all frosted badly when I brought them in and the condensation was terrible. the best thing I could do was to keep wiping them down with a towel, have fans blowing at full speed on all the sets with the back covers off to evaporate the condensation as quickly as possible. the fans did the trick and they dried nicely.

In the photos, you see the original home the TV's were found in followed by a picture of the TV found in that home.