[AdamAnt316]

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

I just put a bid on a Zenith Royal 7000 (on eBay) this afternoon (yesterday, if anyone reads this after midnight April 30). Always wanted a TransOceanic with FM. The only difference I can see between the 3000 and the 7000 series is that the latter has its innards on PC boards, whereas the 3000, and its variants going back to the Royal 1000, used a metal chassis and sockets for the transistors.

I notice the 7000 has some refinements as well that the earlier sets did not have, such as tuning meters, BFO, variable RF gain control, etc. (Should I win this one, the BFO function will come in handy for listening to stations such as W1AW for code practice, so as not to get rusty with the code.)

The 7000 I'm bidding on still has one day and 20-some hours left on the auction as I write this, and in fact someone did outbid me after the very first bid I placed on it; I learned of this by way of a popup on the website the second I hit the "enter" key on my keyboard after placing that bid. Needless to say, I immediately placed a slightly higher bid, which to date hasn't been met or exceeded. I'll keep you posted.

I don't know how rare the Royal 7000 is compared to the earlier, metal-chassis T/O's, but I doubt it is worth more than $100 on the used market. The older sets would probably be worthy of higher bids, but since the 7000 (and its offshore-made cousin, the 7000-Y) has PC boards and is less sturdy than the older T/Os, I believe one would be paying far too much if he/she bid more than the $100 figure I mentioned (and which is my exact bid on the 7000 I am after).

Are you referring to the Royal 7000, or the R-7000? The Royal 7000 series, as I understand it, was the last series of Trans-Oceanic (and possibly the last production radio ever) to be factory-built in a metal chassis using point-to-point wiring, as seen here. Zenith thought that buyers would choose hand-made quality over the cheaper printed circuit board construction of the radios starting to stream in from overseas; sadly, they were wrong. The R-7000 series which followed switched to PC board construction and, after a number of radios were built in the US, production was moved to Taiwan. The D7000Y, which I own an example of, has "MADE IN U.S.A." on the bottom sticker. Wonderful radios, BTW.
-Adam