Quote:
Originally Posted by Sandy G
There IS an MJ1035 on You-Know-Where right now w/a BIN of $199.95...Seems a bit high, but the radio looks pretty good, & the guy says it works...Hmmmmm...(grin)-Can't Spring For It.
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That BIN is more than a little high; it is much too high, IMHO. After all, $199.95 was the exact selling price of a brand new MJ1035 in 1962. That radio is unlikely to be worth anywhere near that much today. I personally wouldn't have paid anywhere that much for a radio that is over 40 years old, especially considering the mediocre performance (by today's standards) of the MJ1035's multiplex decoder. The decoder in mine doesn't do badly in my area (35 miles southwest of the Cleveland stations) with just a wire antenna, but as a rule the MPX decoder in this radio will not work very well if you are more than 15 miles away from the transmitters (as stated by one person on the AntiqueRadios.com discussion forum). This is because the MPX circuitry in the MJ1035 was one of Zenith's first attempts at putting stereo FM in a table radio; later models improved on the design, and by about the '70s the bugs had been eliminated, for the most part.
Too bad this all came to a screeching halt several years later (in the early eighties) when Zenith went out of the radio business for good, and the Japanese, Korean, etc.-built stereo radios, CD players and such we are seeing today on store shelves (at dirt-cheap prices) are now sporting FM tuners that are little better than 2-transistor AM sets (and have little more reception range), having multiplex decoders on single chips (my 1980-vintage Zenith H480 FM stereo clock radio has its MPX decoder on one chip, so this one-chip trend has been going on for over 25 years) and the radios themselves being assembled in a slap-dash manner on assembly lines. All the more reason for us AKers to keep our old vintage/antique radios working as long as possible, as we will never see that level of quality in radios (or anything else, for that matter) again--no thanks to outsourcing.
BTW, one other bid I saw on eBay some time ago (the last time I looked, the item was still there) was for a tube-type audio mixer that was supposedly used by four popes. (The description next to the picture of this mixer states "Tube type audio mixer used by FOUR POPES!", for crying out loud!) The opening bid was $50,000. With an opening bid that high, I'm not surprised the item has been sitting on eBay for months with no bids. I see this with certain types of antique radios as well; 60-year-old-plus Zeniths with opening bids in the hundreds of dollars, for example. I can see how a Zenith radio such as their Walton model (the set that appeared in the TV series
The Waltons) would have an opening bid as high as $1,000 or more, but not most of the company's earlier tombstone sets. The 1930s Zenith consoles, not to mention the 1920s model IX, X and other three-dial Zeniths (not to mention the very rare Chicago Radio Labs/Zenith model 4R which shows up on eBay once in a blue moon, if you're lucky), are more likely to command higher bids; I've seen Zenith shutterdial consoles with opening bids as high as $100 or more and the model IX/X, et al. starting even higher, but I think the opening bid on these sets depends on the condition of the cabinet and the chassis, not necessarily in that order. (The model IX and X, etc. from the 1920s, due to their rarity, should sell, IMO, for at least $400 if in good condition.) Someone who has either had the chassis restored or has done it him/herself (ditto for the cabinet) is not likely to want to give his/her services away by putting a low opening bid on the radio, unless the hope is that the set will eventually sell for $1,000 or more once the auction ends.
With the audio mixer I mentioned above, however, I'm not so sure. It depends on whether or not it works and its condition, IMHO; I don't think it's worth $50,000 simply because it was used by four popes. I think the seller is just trying his or her best to get as much money as possible from the auction without knowing much, if anything, about appraisal of old radios. It is unlikely the sellers have even had these sets (televisions from the late '40s as well as radios) appraised to determine just how much they would be worth as antiques; many people just want them out of their houses/basements/garages as soon as possible, for as much money as they can get.