Estate Sale Finds in 2010!

[leadlike]

Jukeboxes certainly don't go for much around here, typically a working one for 200. Just recently I was at an auction where some early 78 rpm jukeboxes went for less than 100 dollars apiece. Although that doesn't stop every antique mall and Craigslister from pricing their late 70's junker as pure gold. I guess I have seen plenty of them FOR sale, but never SOLD.

Since I don't venture out to estate sales much, just what do they do with the overpriced stuff that certainly won't sell? Do they just wind up taking offers in the 11th hour? Or do they have a buyer lined up (ie take it all to auction, etc.).

[drh4683]

Sale in Northfield at 267 Wagner Rd. For the first time in going to estate sales, I found a 20" Zenith "mini console" color set. Its a 1967 model with the 20X1C38 chassis. It was being used as the support stand for the BPC set. Under these circumstances I would have assumed the Zenith didn't work, however I was wrong. I turned it on and it worked fine with a good color picture on channel 23! I would assume the bubbling cateracts is what made this TV go out of service. The CRT is a February 1977 RCA and its strong as new.
In the same room I also found an early Micro 2G stereo Zenith portable phono from 1964. This is one of my favorite models with the green and blue speaker cloth. I had one 10+ years ago and sold it on ebay back around the same time and never found another nice one since. It has the typical rock hard idler tire. This is a tube type unit too.

[marty59]

I always look forward to this estate sale thread!

I managed to pick up a 57' Zenith Z300E chassis 17Z22Q with the "Space Commander 200" (with remote!) that I had been interested in for the last few weeks. It's a faux blond wood finish metal cabinet that sits on a wooden pedastal. Has a water mark on the top that's down to the metal..ugh.

Nice folks to talk with and they let me pop off the back. Brightner present but with my checker just being turned on the emission showed signs of increasing, but tracking was down still, but potential! Had not been used in years.. They wanted $125.00 for it! I honestly and politely told them I would give them half but no more and they declined.

So after they were "stuck" with it they emailed me with a counter offer of $75.00....well, I bit. I like the TV and it will be a fun project, I'll have to repaint the cabinet... just match it up as close as possible..It'll look good!

[zenithfan1]

I figured it was you that got these when I was there on Friday, the description the guy gave me fit you to a tee. I asked if they were still there because he said it was a half hour wait, I didn't want to wait for nothing. Glad they were saved.

[DaveWM]

Love that zenith.

[AUdubon5425]

Those LPs look extremely clean - hope there was something worthwhile in there too.

[DaveWM]

how about a screen shot when you get a chance Doug.

My zenith with that chassis has just been chugging along. The pin cushion adj is a tad off, and out of range to correct. I am going to check the caps in that circuit as it has all the orig caps still in it.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by marty59

I always look forward to this estate sale thread!

I managed to pick up a 57' Zenith Z300E chassis 17Z22Q with the "Space Commander 200" (with remote!) that I had been interested in for the last few weeks. It's a faux blond wood finish metal cabinet that sits on a wooden pedastal. Has a water mark on the top that's down to the metal..ugh.

Nice folks to talk with and they let me pop off the back. Brightner present but with my checker just being turned on the emission showed signs of increasing, but tracking was down still, but potential! Had not been used in years.. They wanted $125.00 for it! I honestly and politely told them I would give them half but no more and they declined.

So after they were "stuck" with it they emailed me with a counter offer of $75.00....well, I bit. I like the TV and it will be a fun project, I'll have to repaint the cabinet... just match it up as close as possible..It'll look good!

You had me going for a while with the first sentence of your reply: "I managed to pick up a 57' Zenith ..." The first thing that came to mind was that you had bagged a 57' flat-panel HDTV, but then I saw the chassis number and knew that couldn't possibly be right. The 17Z22Q chassis was designed for the 4:3 aspect ratio and to operate with a standard CRT, decades before there was any such thing as high-definition television in this country. I then looked up the chassis number on Google and found that this chassis had been manufactured by Zenith in the year 1957--as mentioned, several decades before really large-screen televisions (over 30 inches) were even thought of here. The problem was that the apostrophe was placed after the number (57') rather than ahead of it ('57). The former would be used to describe a huge HDTV flat-panel (I've seen them advertised in flyers in my Sunday paper for Best Buy; you'd need a living room the size of Texas to accomodate anything that big--sheeesh....and I thought Montgomery-Ward's "The Montgomery" 3-way console TV/stereo/phono was huge at nine feet long); the latter is used to abbreviate calendar years to two digits.

I also wondered about your statement that you had to repaint the Zenith's cabinet. I had thought the set was in a solid-wood cabinet and couldn't imagine why anyone would want to repaint a blonde (or any other shade) wooden cabinet, although I know it has been done in the past--often with hideous-looking results. Then I read the item description and saw exactly what you were referring to: a Zenith TV in a metal, faux-woodgrain cabinet--the woodgrain having been, yup, you guessed it, painted on. First time I ever saw anything like that. Oh well. The set was resting on a real wood pedestal, so at least part of the cabinet (the lower half) was actual wood. The other thing that should have tipped me off that the finish was painted on was your statement that there was a stain of some sort on top which had gone through to the metal; I could tell you didn't care for that when I saw your comment "ugh" in your post when you were describing the damage to the finish.

[marty59]

Gee, Jeffhs...

I don't know if I should laugh or apologize...but now that I quit laughing I'll try to remember where to put that apostrophe next time! And I do mean that in the nicest way!!

Thanks for catching my error...

[AndyMack]

Great finds Doug! I'd love to have that mini-console here in my office. Perfect size, and a Zenith to boot! Like another poster said, I always look forward to the new additions to the estate sale thread. I can live vicariously through you guys! lol

[Jeffhs]

Regarding Doug's newest estate sale find (the Zenith 20" mini-console), the set looks great for its age and should perform in typical Zenith fashion after the usual overhaul. However, I'm wondering if the remote receiver is still in the set. Looks like the manual channel selector knob and the remote/manual switch on the back of the set are missing unless, as I suspect, they just aren't showing up well in the picture.

BTW, what is the difference between the SC-100 and SC-200 remotes? I know the SC-100 was channel up and on/off (the latter accomplished by setting a remote trip tab on an unused channel to shut the set off). Does the SC200 add the on/off (and/or volume step and mute) functions to the basic SC100?

Thanks in advance.

[zenithfan1]

It's not a remote set, the backs all have the holes and provisions whether they are remote are not.

[jln1966]

I like that record player. I see those on ebay from time to time. It looks like the left speaker is removable. Once you get it going it will be great for playing 45s. It has the tall spindle that uses the round 45 adaptor. They are much better than the later short flat 45 adaptors. You can stack about 10-12 45s on the tall ones but only 5-6 on the short ones.
John

[andy]

...

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by zenithfan1

It's not a remote set, the backs all have the holes and provisions whether they are remote are not.

Ooops! I must have been thinking about marty59's Zenith 17Z20Q remote TV. I looked at the picture of Doug's set a few minutes ago, however, and realized there is no way that TV could have been a SC one, given the control layout and so on; not to mention that there is no remote sensor anywhere on the front of the set.

You are correct as to the same back covers being used on SC and non-SC equipped Zenith televisions; I've seen this before in other makes as well. A manufacturer may have an overstock of a certain type of cabinet at the end of a model year, for example, so he will put several different chassis in them to make room for next year's sets; this often results in cabinets housing non-SC chassis and, as a result, having empty holes or covered knockouts on the back covers for manual channel selectors, remote on/off switches, etc. (My RCA XL100 CTC185 table color set, which has mono sound, has an empty speaker grille on one side; I think the same basic cabinet may have been used for RCA TVs with stereo sound as well, such as their F19281.)

If they are not covered already I would cover those holes, however, if there is no remote chassis, manual selector knob, etc. if I had a set like Doug's. The reason is that these open holes could be an invitation to trouble, such as insects flying into them, foreign objects being dropped or pushed through them and winding up on the chassis (creating shorts and/or shock or fire hazards if such object is metal), and other problems.