Evil old TV threat

[Carmine]

Why must people suggest such idiocy in their e-bay ads?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...&category=3638

Somebody should save this one, it looks really nice.

[Rob]

Auction title reads "Retro Zenith TV would make a great fish tank".

I couldn't not send the seller this comment.

"Oh man, I AM a vintage TV collector and seeing an auction title like yours just makes me shake my head. These Zenith Porthole sets are very distinctive, somewhat scarce and aren't being made any more. How about your skull would make a great repository for a brain."

I saw that too and my jaw hit the floor. And to thinkis that it's not the first time someone has suggested that an old set would make a great fish tank.

WTF is it with this train of thought? I just don't get it. Do they think that by saying such a ludicrous thing that they've expanded their potential buyer's interest?

If nothing else, how long do you think the wood in that cabinet would survive the high humidity of such use?? Obviously this would NOT make a "good fish tank" What a maroon.

Anthony

Edited addition:

Here's a snippet of what I just sent the seller of this set:

"Please help me understand something, for someone who obviously appreciates architecture and older furniture, why in the hell would you suggest destroying a beautiful old TV as this by making it into a fish tank? I sincerely hope that you were joking, but please realize that many others may actually take your
words and act upon them."

[Eric H]

You can probably thank Dharma and Greg for this idiot trend.
That show featured a TV fish tank as a prop.

Monkey see Monkey do.

[VinylHanger]

I was thinking that it would make a great lighted terrarium? A few lizards and frogs?

[Rob]

Originally posted by VinylHanger
I was thinking that it would make a great lighted terrarium? A few lizards and frogs?

You trying to get into a fight?

Well, shit the bed, here's a kissing cousin to the set that started this thread:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...&category=3638

Probably is within a year of the above model. Notice the current price.....wonder what the reserve is.

Anthony

[bgadow]

I may have told this before, but a couple years ago I stopped by one of my usual haunts, a junky flea market whose owner picks up lots of stuff for me. When I walked up she motioned to a complete 12" Porthole chassis (w/crt) that she let me have for probably $10. Seems 30 minutes before she sold the cabinet to someone for a fish tank & they asked if they could leave the chassis behind. I was so close!

[Tubejunke]

Today I was in an antique mall in North Carolina and noticed an old roundie console. It was either a Stromberg-Carlson or a Capehart with Chinese woodwork on the doors. The set was in decent original unmolested condition. I asked the woman running the place if it worked and she said, " I dont think so, I think their just selling it for the cabinet." This made me sick! I have run into it before with later 50s sets or 60s but not with a roundie. The worst part is that most antique dealers I talk to have no clue or concept of any television being worth anything except gutting. Too many times I have talked to antique dealers who tell me of taking old tvs to the landfill. Another thing I didnt understand today was why the cabinet with the worthless inner workings should command a $125 price tag. Kind of funny how a lot of things are worthless untill they are sitting on a dealers sales floor.

[Chad Hauris]

Unfortunately real TV collectors who work on the sets are very few and far between and the only hope many antique sellers have of selling an old TV or radio is as a decorative item.

Antique malls appear to be very difficult for the dealer to make money...the owner may be the only one really making money of the rent the dealers pay. The "nut" the independent dealer may have to overcome before they turn a profit may be $80 or more a month in rent, so I think this is why there are exorbitant prices on some things in these malls.

[bgadow]

My wife & I were discussing setting up a booth in a mall, selling odds & ends she picks up & some radios I have restored. I priced around, most want $300-400 per month for an 8x10 space. How can anyone make any money paying that kind of rent? Shoot, I could probably find a vacant storefront down on Main St. for that kind of rent, but then would have to be there to run it. Some of the places will sell single items for percentages so if we do anything it will be that way.

Renting a storefront means you'd have to carry liability insurance and pay for electricity and garbage pickup (among other things that are probably included in the mall rental price).

Anthony

[Jeffhs]

I like Zenith TVs (and radios) too. Can't figure out and don't understand for the life of me why anyone would want to make a fish tank out of the cabinet. (You'd never catch me doing such a terrible thing.) I guess anyone who thinks along those lines doesn't appreciate older electronics like us AKers do.

Kind regards,

[Jeffhs]

I would read the description of that porthole set again. After the seller made that remark about the set's cabinet making a good fish tank , he/she followed it by saying "collectors may disagree", as everyone on this thread, myself included, has done so far. I had a 1963 Zenith 23" console b&w TV in the early '70s which I would not have turned into a fish tank or anything else; the set worked much too well by the time I finished restoring it. Unfortunately, I had to get rid of the set when I moved in the summer of 1972. Nearly broke my heart to do it, as I had put quite a bit of work into it; besides that, it had probably the best sounding audio I have ever heard from a TV set, with its 6BN6 quad detector, 6BQ5 output and a 6x9 speaker. (Today I have a 1963 Zenith K731 AM-FM radio in a walnut cabinet that sounds just as good, with a 35C5 output tube, 19T8 1st audio and, again, a 6x9 speaker; I bought it in an ebay auction, probably to make up for having gotten rid of that Zenith console, not to mention liking the looks of the cabinet--in that order, of course. I wouldn't be caught dead gutting that radio for the cabinet--I like the sound of it, and the overall operation, much too well.)

To have gutted that 23" set and turn its cabinet into a fish tank would have been a horrible mistake. (I'm glad I rescued it from the trash and got it working again; I am only sorry, however, I couldn't have kept it longer than I did, because when I finally put the last new tube in it and fired it up, it worked as well as any modern set of that period.)


Kind regards,