Well, for ten bucks, I figured, eh, what the hey.
Turns out that nobody else bid, so I ended up with 'em.
So, this past Sunday, I picked 'em up-- juuust dodging a big storm that rolled through central Iowa, I might add.
I hauled off three of them (that's all that would fit in my vehicle anyway) and left the other three. [I had asked the seller ahead of time if the auction winner actually needed to take *all* of them...
He was perfectly fine with that. ]
These sets were among various junk that was left in an old machine shed / garage that the eBay seller had bought several years ago (and have been sitting there since then), so the history of these sets is basically unknown.
Here's the three that I took:
- RCA 24-D-655
It's a nice big Deluxe 24" B&W set in a blonde-finished wood cabinet. I think it's a 1956 model-- is that right..? The cabinet is dirty and the finish is flaking off at the top, but at least it doesn't have any gouges or other major cosmetic defects otherwise. Speaker cloth is still in great shape. The channel selector knob is missing, but everything else seems intact and in place. Looking inside, the chassis appears to have a typical amount of dust, but is otherwise pretty clean. The CRT (a 24CP4A) is a Rauland/Zenith new replacement that was bought on 4/1/61 according to the warranty certifricate that had been attached to the cabinet back. Unfortunately, the CRT tests bad. Really bad. When I checked it on my B&K 466, I couldn't even set the cutoff voltage, and the needle hardly budged on the emission test even with the cutoff control set all the way clockwise. Just for fun, I turned up the heater voltage to 8 V, and this caused the emission reading to move up only slightly. I tried it on another tester (a reasonably modern RCA tester) for a "second opinion," and it responded exactly the same way. Any chance this CRT can be salvaged? Is it safe to leave a CRT hooked up to a tester for long periods (to try letting it "cook" at a high heater voltage)? Or should I just go try to "zap" (rejuvenate) it? Given how it tests almost "dead", I'm surprised it didn't have a brightener on it or anything. At least it's still under vaccuum and doesn't seem to have any shorts. I haven't done anything with the chassis yet; all I've done so far is test the CRT.
- Admiral C21F42
This is a 21" console in what appears to be a black-painted masonite cabinet. It seems a bit odd, though, that the 'base' color of the masonite (or whatever that is) is a medium red-- wouldn't it have been easier just to use black masonite? Or perhaps this isn't the factory color, and someone painted it black later on..?
(If someone painted it later on, whoever it was must have done a pretty good job though). The big metal nameplate on the front also says "Imperial 440" on it-- anyone know what the significance of that is..? The plastic housing for the yoke looked rather melted/deformed,
and the button socket base for the CRT looked a bit defomred too -- and the CRT socket was disconnected -- which didn't exactly inspire confidence, but oddly enough, the CRT (a 21CEP4A) tests out *great*..! So, at least that's good! BTW, Jordan is right about the vertical chassis on this set. Even for a vertical chassis, this thing seems to have pretty good design from a service standpoint. It's transformer powered too, unlike a lot of other verticals.
- Zenith metal-cabinet 21" table set
Forgot to record the model number or other data. Haven't looked into this guy yet.
In case anyone's curious, the remainings sets are:
- Sears Silvertone 21" table set
This set looks fairly compact in the auction pictures, but it's not! The height and width dimensions are nice and trim, but the cabinet is very, *very* deep. It seems overly deep even when you consider the depth of early 21" rectangular B&W tubes, but there's no CRT cap, so perhaps that's part of the reason. Also, the tuning controls are on the side of the cabinet waaaay back at the rear-- it must have been really fun to try adjusting the
fine tuning while watching the screen! Cabinet is *very* plain in appearance, and seems to be made of a thin wood covered in brown vinyl.
- Magnavox 19" B&W portable
Appears to be a low-end model-- plain grey steel cabinet, no carrying handle.
- Crosley mystery console
I can't verify if it's a Crosley or not, but Tony V is right about this thing being a small screen in a huge cabinet! Small speaker too. There's a lot of empty space in this thing. Also, no manufacturer markings *anywhere*, inside or out. No tube layout guide, no model number / power consumption plate, no nothin'. Back cover is *blank*. The tubes are from all different makes (none are Crosley-marked), and the CRT label wasn't visible. There's a quick instruction guide tacked to the top of the set that says "Preview
Television" and has general instructions on how to switch on the set and tune it, which makes one think it was originally a hotel TV or something. There's also a keylock on the back cover which would tend to support that theory. There's also a rectangular metal box (now empty) mounted in a hole cut into the side of the cabinet which may have held a timer or something, but I don't think it was for a coin-operated mechanism (it looks too small for a coin-acceptor, and there's no opening for a coin slot). Dunno what that's about, but does that ring any bells for people?