[drh4683]

This was a local find for me this past Thursday off of craigslist. It was in Des Plaines, IL which is a northwest suburb. Very close by to where I work, so I was able to stop by on my way home.
I called up the guy who was the son of the original owners to ask for a model number and some pictures. The pictures he sent made the set look really kind of bad. The top of the cabinet looked bad in his pics, but it turned out to be alot better when I saw it in person.
This is a 1967 model X4120 that uses the 24NC31Z chassis. This is the very last year zenith offered roundies, and the 24NC31 the last chassis designed for the 21FJP22. Its a lower end console, but Ive been wanting to find one of these late model zenith roundies with this control layout. I always liked the speaker grille with the color emblem in the center.
He goes on to tell me that the TV was not working and that a TV repair man back in the late 70's said the tube was shot and the TV was not worth repair. He tried it out before he listed it to confirm that the CRT was "bad". We got it upstairs in the living room and plugged it in. Sound but no picture. pulled the back off to check it out and I could hear high voltage, the CRT filaments were on. So I suspected a video output problem or a totally dead crt. I flipped the service switch over and got a nice bright horizontal line! I flipped it back and the picture came on bright! Just an intermittent service switch! The verticle is very short though, but it does have a good picure. The CRT was replaced in October of a year yet to be determined as the degaussing ring was covering that part of the label. I dont know what kind of rebuild it is either. It looks like maybe a channel master or so. Pulling off the ring will reveal the rest. They didnt remember when the new tube was put in. After about 1 minute, we smelled smoke. The thermistor was broken away and was arcing! So thats where it stands now until I have a chance to pull it apart and get it back to normal.
The reason they kept it is because their daughter won the TV on Bozo's flying circus back in 1966! It was a horse naming contest and you had to write in to WGN TV with what you would name the horse. The names were judged and the winner got the zenith TV and the horse! Well, their daughter won, with the name "Padapon". The horse went to the zoo where it lived a good life. The original owners son was there to help me with the TV, it was still in their house since day one. I commented that Padapon was an interesting name for a horse. He laughed and said that his sister remembered that name from some story book with a horse she liked. Ha, the judges didn't even know it was a plagerized name! She was only 6 years old when the TV was won as first prize. It was the familys first color TV set.

It was advertized as a best offer deal. Well, after they found out I was a collector and was familar with these, the family just wanted me to have it for free as part of my collection as they really wanted to see it go to a good home. I still gave them $20 for it and everyone was happy.