Estate Sale Finds in 2010!

[DaveWM]

WOW that is one nice looking TV and tha chassis is super clean, great find

[joemama99]

You gotta love that!Did you get a remote with it?

[andy]

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[radiotvnut]

That's one very nice set. I'll bet it will fire up just fine.

[Eric H]

Great set Doug.
I noticed all the fins on the power transformer are bent over but I don't see any way that could happen in normal service or repair, are they usually like that on the Zeniths?

[Jeffhs]

I've owned several Zenith TVs with power transformers, and this is the first one I've ever seen with the fins bent like that. It's nearly impossible to tell at this distance what could have done it, unless it was the result of some sort of accident. I can't imagine any TV technician worth his salt deliberately bending these fins; techs are supposed to realize that they are there for a reason, and not to be messed with under any circumstances.

[drh4683]

Bent over fins like this is not uncommon in the color sets. If you look, there is not a row of fins like you'd see in the roundies and earlier sets. That would be a little more objectionable if that were the case and they were still bent up. These fins may not necessarily be intended for cooling purposes. I highly doubt that this is malicious activity from a technician. I remember as a kid I would try to bend them back straight as it bothered me but seeing it on TV after TV proved to me it was a factory deal and I left it alone.

Actually, you can somewhat figure out the process how the transformer gets the black coating. You can see the outline of the diamond grating on top of the trans. Most likely there is a pool of the substance and the transformers get dropped down into it and brought back up leaving residual coating material stuck to the transformer off the grating when they get pulled off.

As for estate sales, I only go on saturdays and the average for me is usually 6 or 7 sales for any given weekend. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

[andy]

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[Carmine]

Hey... That TV looks familiar...

Ghost of a TV

I see those stupid-asses put a gooey sticker right on the top of yours too!

[drh4683]

Yes, it makes too much sense to put the sticker on the glass. There used to be a resale shop where I grew up called "Marklund Resale" and they priced everything with a grease crayon. Those idiots would write the price right on the cabinet and also on the screen. WD-40 would always take it off without harm but still.

Andy, the most estate sales I could practically go to would be about 13 in one day. Sales normally start at 9am, some at 10 and usually go to 3pm on average. I wish the hours were longer as it wouldn't make things so crazy to try to hit them. That 6 hours flys by so fast. If I have my route planned just right, I can go from north to south and just hit them all without back tracking. However, I usally end up wanting to start my first sale at the one that unfortunately starts at 10 and the one I want to hit last is usally the one that ends first, which is like 2pm. That screws up my whole schedule and have to compromise usually by give up a sale or two, but thats normally if there are more than 8 sales or so. Sometimes I get stuck at a sale that has the annoying outside line which they let 3 people in the house every 15 minutes. Im also lucky because I get to hear everyone whine and complain because its so cold out and they start bickering at the sale people to let more in and "whats with the wait, come on" etc. etc.. I just keep my mouth shut and wait quietly to get in. Im sure those of you from the midwest know exactly what Im talking about.

I am usually in and out of the house in minutes, Im not one of those people who while you wait in line for 40 minutes to get in, you see people inside the house who you didn't see in line. You wonder what the hell they could be looking at all this time, but these are usually the same people who buy all the knick knack junk and hold up the check out line for another 20 minutes while they get every little peice of crap priced out. All you want to do is give them the 10 bucks for the TV, say thanks and get out the door.

I was always stunned how many people have the freedom to go to estate sales on a friday, which apparently are the best days for estate sales. Very rarely do I get to do a friday sale due to work, but there are times I was able to fit one in that happened to be close to work on my lunch break. They were always jammed and the mornings were always jammed to with 40 foot lines of people waiting to get in. There are usually many estate sales advertized, about 20+ around chicagoland each weekend, but I only go the ones that advertize things that you can tell would be an old house that never changed (those are the houses with the old TV's of course). If I see ads like "Tons of womens clothes, glass figurines, book cases, leather recliner, wicker patio furniture, CD's, computers, Sanyo big screen TV, 2004 Honda CRV with 24000 miles flowed by the typical annoying one liners that still fail to get me to the sale: "everything from A to Z" or "something for everyone". When you see those one liners, it basically means "we have nothing but crap, but we think this might lure you out here anyway". Back when I was into garage sales, which was long long ago, the big words to look out for in the ads were "baby toys" or anything related to that. This eliminated about 98% of all the garage sales advertized. I eventually gave up on garage sales because they proved to be a useless waist of time. I started estate sales almost as soon as I got my drivers license. It opened to door to freedom for me to go anywhere I wanted, where as a kid, I was restricted to garage sales by bike. I used to make incredible long trips on my bike though. I really learned my local geography pretty darn good at an early age though, it was alot of fun. When I was 16 back in '99, I bought my first car for $3500 which I still have today, a '68 Buick electra. When I was 16, going to estate sales in that car was an absolute blast, I have great memories of going places in that car in my early days of driving. I was so proud of that car and that my parents also liked it. (I thank my dad for getting me into old cars). I really never changed now that I think about it, I just changed how I do things. I have however, found vintage TV's that somehow were in one of those "new" estate sales but thats only happened maybe once or twice in the last 10 years.

[andy]

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[radiotvnut]

We don't have many estate sales in my area; but, the ones I've been to in the past usually had something of interest. Church rummage sales are a mixed bag. The older churches with an older congregation often have stuff of interest. The garage sales in the newer neighborhoods that advertise "baby clothes" usually mean that the people running them have never even seen a knob tuned TV, let alone owned one. The biggest problem around here are the dealers (aka, vulchers) who always show up at sales two hours early or even the day before and buy up all the good stuff so they can put it on ebay or take it to the flea market with a price tag that's 14 times higher than it should be. I can't tell you how many sales I've been to (when they opened) where something of interest was advertised and I was told, "yeah, we had an old radio; but, we sold it yesterday." The whole time I'm thinking, "What the hell do you mean you sold it yesterday, the sale wasn't supposed to start until this morning". A friend of mine, who used to live in TX, said it was illegal to sell anything at a garage or estate sale before the posted start time. I can actually see both sides of the coin on this issue. As a seller, you have to sell an item whenever the opportunity presents itself. As a buyer, it's real irritating when you show up at a sale that is advertised to start at 7 AM and find out that the very thing you wanted was sold the day before.

[Chad Hauris]

Recently I have been able to find a pretty good amount of tube type radios and radio phonographs at estate sales along with lots of electric motors, fan blades and fans.
I haven't seen very many tube-type TV's at all over the last 5 years or so. Mostly the ones I do see are the small black and white sets.
Old radios seem to have a lot much more sentimental value to people that old TV's and seem to be held on to a lot more...I have seen this in both buying them to own, and in what people bring in to get repaired at our repair shop.

I actually found a CTC-25 or CTC-17 this year at the thrift shop (haven't opened it up yet) but this is very rare.

Several of the estate sale companies here send out emails with links to photo galleries and this has been very helpful at spotting things I'd like to get.
I sure wish more sales would operate in the evening, at least one day so people working regular hour jobs could go easier. On the rare occasion I have gone to an estate sale on a weekday if I have taken some time off work I am amazed how many people are there at say 2:00 in the afternoon or 10:00 AM on a Thursday or Friday.

When I was a kid I often would find good stuff at garage sales but unless the ad mentions old radios or a jukebox or something like that I don't patronize garage sales. It takes 1/2 hour just to drive to town and it's too much wasted effort if the sale doesn't have any thing good.

[bgadow]

Up until maybe 5 years ago I had never seen a true estate sale locally, and they are still extremely rare. Sometimes months will go by between listings; once this past summer there were 2 in a weekend-whoopee! I've yet to find anything decent at one. Around here there are tons of auction companies and they get most of the estates; not worth my time, usually. I did hit a couple of good estate sales one time on vacation in Kentucky; picked up some nice bw tube portables, too.

[drh4683]

Well I decided to power it up last night. The darn thing works great with bright color picture. The remote works too, but the channel down doesn't respond. Most likely needs a touch up on the detector coil. Has good color and good sound. This one survived quite well. I really hate DTV though. I wish analog was still alive on VHF, it really made testing out and watching these old sets so much more fun and enjoyable.
Currently on the bench is the '64 RCA roundie table set I picked up in December, so it will be a while before I get this zenith set up just right.