[drh4683]

Went to 6 estate sales yesterday. Found two sets, one of them was an absolute surprize of a find.

First sale I went to was at 619 Huber Ln, in Glenview. Typical late 60's two story house. Green shag carpeting in the living room must have been 6" in length. Never seen shag carpet that extreme before. Even up the stairs!
Anyway, I found this nice 1961 Zenith portable in a blue steel cabinet. It had this orange tag that reads "Not working". I figured it couldn't be. So I plugged it in and it really didn't work! Every so often you might run into a non working zenith, but its a rare occurance. This one has no HV. It also has this unusual completely not ergonomic 3 pointed tuning dial. Obviously styling supperceeded engineering in this case. It does look cool though. It was marked $1.00. It was half off, so $.50 takes it home! My kind of deal!

The 3rd sale brought me down to Blue Island, IL at 2318 Krueger Ave. It was a typical 1950's brick ranch. Very typical type of home you find throughout the chicagoland suburbs. When I walked in, there was nothing to old as far as TV's. Had the usual new TV on the old TV cart in the living room. Both bedrooms had "newer" sets. So I go down to the basement as a last hope. As I turned at the base of the stairs I saw for a split second what appeared to be the side of a large TV on a TV cart. Two ladies stepped right in front of it so it blocked my view. I quickly went over to it and when I saw it, I was completely stunned. Finally, I found one of my "must have" sets! Its a 1969 Zenith 25" steel cabinet concentric tuning set. Ive been looking for one of these for years. It even had the original gusdorf cart. I finally found the TV, not the empty cart!!!!!
It was sitting in the basement exactly as you see it pictured. I didnt have my good camera with me, so I had to use my motorola i-580 cell phone to take the pics. The set was marked at $15.00, but anything at this sale under $20 was half off. So I got it for $7.50.
There were some 20+ women at this sale, so I didn't have any help at all to move the set. I didn't have my appliance cart with me either. (I was unprepaired yesterday, but thats when you find the sets...). I waited around for a few minutes expecting someone who was capable of helping me move this thing out of the basement. Well, I gave up and I just informed everyone I was going to be moving the set and to stay clear. I bear hugged this tank of a set and climbed it up the stairs vertically so I could get through the door. Stupid idiots still came to the basement door and down the stairs when I was on my way up, totally in my way acting like "oh, what do I do". As soon as I got up the stairs I immediately had to set it down. My heart rate was pretty intense. Picked it back up and brought it out to the truck. You know how it is. you pick up a huge TV by yourself and everyone has to throw in their .02 cents "wow, that looks heavy" etc. I got the set outside without a scratch. This set is like new still. Just a little dusty.

I have not plugged it in yet. So i don't know what Im in for, but looking through the back, its completely original. Looks like another survivor that missed the hack tech repairs and not missing the back cover screws! Its a model Z4519W with the 16Z8C50 chassis. I'll do a slow power up on it and see what happens. I never had one of these chassis before. I'll post better pics when its all tuned up. Whats even better is that there is a TV tag on the back from where it was purchased and the day it was purchased! I love this type of stuff when its still on the TV. It reads "Burr Oak TV", "First in Blue Island in Sales and Service" Written on this tag in pen was "Purchased new 1-25-69, 2yr CRT, 1yr Parts, 90 day war." I looked with my flashlight on the inside to find the date stamp on the side of the cabinet. It was there, dated 1-7-69. The set was sold just a little more than two weeks after it was built. Didn't take long!

These are so dang hard to find, any 25" zenith table set from the 60's or early 70's. Its been a pretty dry summer for tube color sets at the estates. So this was a nice way to give me some more confidence that some are still out there!