What's it worth? (Zenith)

[Tubejunke]

I have what may be a similar set only mine is a Space Command remote control set circa 1958 or 9. It seems to generate little or no interest but is a very beautiful set with a large 24" screen.

Your question is what is it worth. I have never found a cut and dry way to answer this question. I look at it more like what is it worth to you? Is it in good condition? Do you like it? If it is not working are you going to be willing to invest in new capacitors?

Eric hit the nail on the head as far as the sets possible value as is. Unfortunately right now late 50's sets are not bringing a lot of $$. Probably for a multitude of reasons. One being the fact that they made a WHOLE lot more sets in 1958 than in 1951. So they are not exactly rare.

I'm glad that they are not expensive because people like me who enjoy attempting to bring the things back to life can't afford to drop a C note in a set that needs all new capacitors and 8 or 10 resistors. The low prices allow us to keep the history alive without going broke.

Another thing is you never know what you are getting when you find an old set. You DON'T want to plug it in unless the seller knows that the set is OK to be plugged in. What I mean about OK is either the set has been checked out or repaired by someone who knows what they are doing or in some cases a set could have been in a family since new and retired to only occasional use and be known to work still. These sets are naturally going to be worth more as you have an idea what you are getting into.

The hard cases are the ones that someone has found in a tobacco barn keeping the mice warm for the last 30 years. This type find you want to give $5-10 for or maybe even try to talk the owner into paying you gas money to haul it off for them. There is no way to check it out to see if it is even feasible to restore it. It could have catastrophic issues such as a bad CRT, or power transformer, or flyback. Other than these three items for the most part you can fairly cheaply fix the rest.

I hope some of this helps you. If you are interested in old electronics 50s sets are a great and interesting hobby. However if you are trying to get rich on Ebay or something you probably want to say away from TV's. If for no other reason the weight and fragile nature of them hinders buyers from bidding if the set would have to be shipped. Simply the logistics are not worth the trouble.