I got suckered into two I felt sorry for, last night
Actually, I gave the guy $20 for both because I felt bad that he carried them up from the basement and brought them over!
A mid-50s RCA Super B&W....someone cut the pins off the picture tube and the safety glass is missing. The other is a 1952 Admiral 21F1. My guess on the Admiral is that very very long ago, someone fell asleep with the set on, and during that time it lost vertical sweep. That's about the only thing that would explain the ion burn in a straight line in the center. Picture tube actually tests very good too.
I might actually restore the Admiral, simply because not too many people ever restore bakelite rectangular Admirals, and I have the missing knobs and I think I might even have a pencil box door that will fit.
The RCA? As I remember those are actually good chassis in those. Maybe I'll test tubes and power it up on a variac just for grins and see if it's got any HV left.....