Estate Sale Finds in 2010!

[andy]

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[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by radiotvnut

I was thinking of the estate sales of today, where the inside of a home often looks the same today as it did 40+ years ago. Then, I think about our society today and how estate sales will be 40 years from now. I think we will find very few sales in which the house has remained the same for several decades. Heck, most people in my age group think they must have a new "this" and a new "that" everytime the wind changes direction. And, forget about them staying in the same house for 40 years. They get bored with whatever they're living in and obtain another "bigger and better" house every few years.

The house I grew up in screamed 1950s until it was sold (by my late father's widow--long story and OT) ten and a half years ago. No kidding--there was old salt-and-pepper color carpeting in the living room and the hallway to the back of the house that was worn down to the underlayment, the original furnace, kitchen cabinets that dated at least to the '50s, the original linoleum flooring in the kitchen, and other remnants of that decade which were never updated (except the paint on the living room and bedroom walls), as I said, until I moved out in 1999 and the place was sold. I'll never forget the first time I saw the house after it was sold. I had gone to a barbershop in the neighborhood to get a haircut, and decided after I was finished to take a look at the street I grew up on. Don't you know it, I nearly walked past my boyhood home, and would have if I hadn't seen the address (1745) on the new mailbox next to the front door. No kidding; the new owners had done so much remodeling in that house, at least as much as I could see on the outside, that I did not recognize the place, despite having lived there 40 years of my life (I'm now 54 and have lived in a small apartment 35 miles east of downtown Cleveland since November 1999; I don't miss that house one bit).

[AndyMack]

Is there such a thing as love-at-first-sight? If so, I've experienced it twice: once for my current gf, and the other when I just saw that RCA that Doug picked up this weekend. Beautiful set, and a great find!

[drh4683]

This sale was at 8220 W 89th Ave in Hickory Hills, IL. This is an early 1964 RCA Victor CTC-15 round screen. This was a really nice original house built in 1962. The TV was in the basement which fortunately was very dry and clean, so the TV has no problems at all. Its in excellent original condition still and was very well cared for. Its a model 14-G724-MV and I think someone in the other thread mentioned the name is "The Randolph" and it has the CTC-15AA chassis to be exact. I've never seen this particular control layout before, so I was unaware of that triangular looking logo above the control panel was the color hologram. I always liked those. They wanted $50.00 for it in as-is condition of course which I paid after waiting nearly a half hour in line as everyone in front of me had a many things. One of the guys at the sale helped me move it up and out to my truck which is always a great help. Looking around in the work shop, I found some tube boxes that contained some original tubes that got pulled out of this set, so I took those along as there is a slight chance they are still good yet and I'll put those back in the set if they are. The people who lived here were WWII generation, the mans name was Orlow Vedder, and he was an electrical engineer at Western Electric. One of the bedrooms upstairs was his office, where he had some promotional things from Western Electric's "Engineers Week" and also numerous drafting items, books etc. which I also bought. He also had some interesting "bombing angle calculators" that must have been his when he was in the air force as it all said "property of US Air force" and appeared to be WWII era. I bought that stuff up too and it was cheap. The WWII uniforms and clothing is always very expensive and fortunately, many collect that type of thing so it always gets saved. He had most of his WWII stuff down in the basement. I always enjoyed these "greatest generation" estate sales best, they were the true Americans and they always seemed to live a great middle class life because of how well their homes were taken care of and the nice things they had.
When I got the set home, first things first and thats take the back off and see whats in there. I was glad to see the dry grey fluff dust which is a sign it was always in a clean home. The infamous brightener was on the CRT which was the bad news... However, with a very slight rejuv, that tube came back very strong and tracked well, so I don't think that brightener was on very long from an operational standpoint. Its still the original CRT, just a little bit of cataracts. The TV appeared to be low hours though, the boards are in great shape still and not overheated, mostly all original tubes are still in it too. All the chassis screws were still underneath, and it doesn't appear that the chassis ever got pulled for repair. Only thing out of place was the tuner shield sitting on the bottom of the cabinet. I noticed the on off volume switch didn't "click" when it was pulled out. When I went to power up the set with the cheater cord and a huge burst of sparks and flames shot out from the volume switch and then it started smoking nearly starting the wires on fire. It was pretty intense, must have been some carbon arcing going on there. That switch is toast, who knows, that might be one of the main reasons that originally put the TV out of commission. I jumped it and the TV powered up fine, good brightness and great sound, lytics were nice and cool to the touch. No color sync which Im sure is the usual 6GH8's. The TV looks like it should work fine but I'll leave that and the power switch replacement up to Dwight as he is the one who wanted me to save this one for him.

[dieseljeep]

I didn't see that many RCA CTC15's with that control panel. I think it was the highest priced tv only model. 6X9 bass speaker and hard cone tweeter. I see it has the original CRT. Dave.

[captainmoody]

Doug, thanks for taking the time to grab that set for me! It looks to be in excellent condition still. Lisa and I will be by Tuesday afternoon to pick up the tv and some Lou Malnati's pizza!

[Chad Hauris]

I have had similar problems with the on/off switches on RCA's but not quite so bad of results. Some of the XL-100 models with a push-pull on-off switch in the 70's actually used a microswitch activated by the volume control shaft to try and put a more robust switch on there. I got a bunch of 120vac coil heavy-duty relays recently so the next time I fix one of these I may put in one of those relays to do the actual power switching and take the heavy load off of the front-panel switch.

[DaveWM]

I wonder if this would be a good use of a varistor to take the surge off.

or maybe that would goof up the auto degausser....

[bgadow]

Another great set-that just has a perfect look. My -15 has that control panel. The plastic panel that covers the lower knobs tends to break off; the color-shift emblem is cool, of course.

I had that switch problem with my -12, the set was dead which probably retired it. My 25MC30 Zenith was the same way.

[RobtWB]

WOW! What a great looking set.

[drh4683]

The RCA is on the road to Detroit now...very safely I might add!

Dwight, you've got that thing padded up in that Explorer like UPS is going to be handling it!

By the way, Ashley and I had a great time with you and Lisa this evening. The two of you need to come back sometime soon on a weekend and the four of us can hit some estate sales.

Let us know how the TV works out. Have fun fixing another cataract CRT too!

[captainmoody]

Thanks again Doug! We made it back ok early this morning. Couldn't sleep in as I'm used to getting up around 6-7AM though, so I got up and I already have replaced the switch with one from a parts chassis! The cataract will have to wait until this winter though.. BTW, thanks for the Zenith building tour!

[dieseljeep]

RCA was sued over that switch. It was a CTS control and the switch was only designed to carry 3 amps. Not even considering inrush. RCA distributor used to carry Centralab KR8M replacement switches that fit perfectly as a replacement. They had instuctions on the package how to install.

[drh4683]

Originally Posted by dieseljeep

RCA was sued over that switch. It was a CTS control and the switch was only designed to carry 3 amps. Not even considering inrush. RCA distributor used to carry Centralab KR8M replacement switches that fit perfectly as a replacement. They had instuctions on the package how to install.

Thats interesting. I remember someone else mentioned that the switches on late ctc15's early 16's were a recall item. Didn't know there was a lawsuit, but it doesn't surprise me the switch on that CTC-15 almost caught fire. It was a significant flash, again, i actually saw the wires start to glow from the flash igniting the insulation at the very end where the wires soldered to the switch. I damped it out with my fingers before it could catch fire, seriously had I not had the back off to see all of this, it could have been a real big problem...



Dwight, no problem. Glad you finally go to see the Plant, quite a bit different seeing it in person compared to just the photos.

[Carmine]

Dwight, I see you've been out of town. I have been trying to get in touch for a few days because a friend insisted I drop off an automotive CD player for you to take a look at. I figured you were just at an estate sale or something... So there is a radio hiding next to the trash can along your new garage wall.

Please call me when u get this. Congrats on that TV, it's very attractive.