First sale I went to was after work on Friday 7-30 in Elmhurst at 465 ridge rd. I picked up a Motorola table AM FM stereo/phono unit. It was plugged in and working in the basement on the shelf that it was most likely custom built for. I never saw a Motorola table model like this before so it was a nice addition to the collection. Like all real Motorola products, they were made at the Franklin Park plant, which was essentially right down the street from where I found it. Model ST-82A from 1964.
On Saturday I went to two sales. The first was in Northbrook at 2215 Valencia. This is the sale with the little 12" Sears tube type color set. It was sitting on a shelf in an office, still plugged in and wired up to the outdoor antenna still. These didn't have istant on, so the TV's life was spared. The set is like new still and hardly ever used, it still works fine and it has all the lables on it still. While I couldn't easily find anything with a date code, I had to look it up in the sams index. Its sams #1079 which is from 1970 and is very early in the index as 1970 sams start with folder #1076. I'd imagine this TV is probably a 1969 model. It is a Toshiba made set too, 562.10428, and many components have the Toshiba name. Its in a nice metal cabinet with big ventilation slots on the side and has 14 tubes in it, so theres barely any solid state in this one! It was $20. I also took a picture so you could compare the competition this set had in 1969 with the comparable Zenith 14". Very cool little set and definately one of the rarer TV finds. There can't be too many of these left, kind of amazing that it was still set up for regular use 41 years later...
The last find was a real dissapointment. It was in Broadview at 2240 22nd Ave. I went in the house and didn't find any TV's, but I found a MIB portable zenith stereo phono but it was sold. Oh well, so I continued to look around and I found a few tubes that I knew were from a late 60's color set. Just for the heck of it, I asked the ladys running the sale if there was an old Zenith TV in the house. Sure enough "Oh yes, but it didn't work so we put it outside for the garbage yesterday, its still behind the house if you want it". I figured it was just some newer pbc set, but nope. I walked outside and I was totally bummed out when I turned the corner to see what was just 24 hours previously a mint condition 1969 Zenith console color set. The idiots drug it out of the house and slid it on the ground tearing up the top and then to add insult to injury, we got a nice rain fall that evening and the TV got destroyed with water. When I went to tilt the TV back, about 2 gallons of water poured out the set which is all the water you see in the photo under the TV. So when I stood it back up, the bottom was so soft that the leg just snapped right off because of the soft soggy wood as the set was just sitting there upside down, not to mention all that particle board just expanded and it'll never be right again. I still took it to get the tuner and chassis. Its a shame as this is one of my favorite control panel layouts as you don't find this one too often. I guess the real annoyance about this whole thing is that the TV actually had a $10 price tag on it and I came to find out someone tried it at the sale and it didn't work, so they just throw it outside to get it out of the house? WHY? THE SALE ISN'T OVER YET, GIVE IT A CHANCE, YOU NEVER KNOW! It makes no sense to me why they felt it neccessary to do that. I also get annoyed with dumpsters in driveways when I pull up to an estate sale, you look in the dumpster and the entire contents of the home is in there, yet when you go inside, there is nothing but the useless crap like glass figurines and misc linens and some ugly 80's wall pictures. If you're going to have an estate sale, why not let the customers decide what gets saved or not? After the sale, then it would be justified to do whatever it is you want with the stuff as it didn't sell. I guess that kind of logic makes too much sense for most people.
Either way, the Sears set was a great find as it would much harder to find one of those again vs. a late 60's zenith console...
1969 Sears (Toshiba) 12" color TV
The comparable competition:
1969 Japanese made metal cabinet Sears/Toshiba Vs. 1969 American made metal cabinet Zenith 15Y6C15
