Estate Sale Finds in 2010!

[Carmine]

Originally Posted by drh4683

Thats correct. I have a president and a prime minister, both of which are smaller but higher end consoles.

Yours being the highest end model was in a class all of its own. Apparently the emperor outranks the rest.

I've asked this several times before Doug, but were there other styles of cabinets offered besides the (I think) Italian Provincial style of my Emperor? If so, could I persuade you to post a photo from the catalog?

[drh4683]

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[grimer]

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[radiotvnut]

I wonder just how common those last gasp 4-tube hybrids really are? Since a 19" color TV was still expensive back then, I'm sure many people bought the hybrid models to save money. I have one of these last gasp sets, you found one in an old house, and Doug has the one he recently found and I seem to remember him finding another one a year or two ago that was more beat up. So, they are out there.

[Carmine]

Originally Posted by drh4683

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???

[zenithfan1]

+1
???

[zenith2134]

My guess is that it was just a thread-bump...not a bad idea since he's found some amazing stuff lately!!

[drh4683]

Actually it was me trying to load up a pdf of some combos from the '67 zenith brochure. It was a failed attempt, so I deleted it in place of "---". I should be able to set up a link with adobe but its not working right now.

[Carmine]

You might want to try and find a third-party free PDF host. I Googled and found this one:

http://freepdfhosting.com/

[drh4683]

Originally Posted by Carmine

You might want to try and find a third-party free PDF host. I Googled and found this one:

http://freepdfhosting.com/

Yes, I found that one too. I tried it out and it seems to work quite well. Expect to see some brochure scans in the very near future. I have tons of Zenith literature to share.

[AUdubon5425]

Excellent Doug!

[drh4683]

There were only a couple sales today, after a very nice week that showed signs of spring, we got hit with a decent snowfall today.
Todays sale was at 508 W. Campbell St, in Arlington Heights, IL. This was a very well kept home, everything in it was excellent. Another home of those in the Greatest Generation, many WWII items and photos, all of which sell quickly to war buffs. Its sad to keep going to sales like this.

The line was a long wait, so I decided to check out what was all in the garage while waiting. Interstingly enough, I find yet another Zenith 4 tube hybrid. This one is a 1972 model C4030W and it was still on the Zenith optional gusdorf cart, all in tact and in excellent condition with both antennas. This is an example of a high end 4 tube hybrid models. Kind of ironic I find a cheapie last week and the high end one this week. This has all the features like backlight tuning, AFC, Tint Gaurd. It still had clean "house dust" on it, so it must have been brought in the garage prior to the sale. No way it was in the garage for any long period of time. It looked like the TV was in the pile of things to be thrown out, so I figured it didn't work. I asked the lady outside, she had no idea where in the house it was. I asked how much and she says $10.00 for it and I paid outside. When I got in, I asked about the TV and the guy running the show claimed it was in the bedroom with the small bed. He said I could have it....too late, I already paid outside! I didn't ask for my money back, Im not that cheap! The house was small, tons of stuff and way too many people inside. They needed all the room they could get so that explains why the TV got put in the garage including many other contents of the home.

Lastly, I found one of my favorite Zenith console stereos. Its a lowboy danish modern unit from 1967. It was not their highest end, but its right in the middle. I always liked the tuning controls on the mid priced units. This one had the manuals and papers, bought new from Central Service (as usual in chicago) and set up on 6-1-67. Still in their dining room playing and sounding great. The phono needs work, its jammed up but the cartridge is good. The brushing of the finger under the tone arm to see how much output came from the speaker verified this. Im sure its the usual dried out grease that turns into "adhesive".

Once I get home, I got the stereo unloaded safely and then brought the TV in the house to try it out.
As I turned it on for the first time, I waited for the warm up and then the HV crackle with nice bright snow. I tuned in my UHF transmitter on channel 18 and it has the typical razor sharp picture like these are supposed to. Its 38 years old, looks like it was never serviced and it still works perfect. We'll never see this quality in consumer electronics ever again.










Supposedly, the Zenith 4 tuber was somewhere in this upstairs bedroom.

[jln1966]

My great uncle had that exact same tv in on a stand in his kitchen. It quit working about 10 years ago and got tossed. I have a heavy portable Zenith record player from 67 with that exact same changer. It works but not great.
John

[radiotvnut]

Nice finds! I especially like that stereo console. I'm not much for SS stereo consoles; but, if I ever found one of these '60's handwired Zenith's, I'd bring it home. An older lady at my old church had one like that. She never used it; but, wouldn't consider getting rid of it (I tried many times). She passed away a few years ago and God only knows what her son did with it.

[AUdubon5425]

V-M changer should be an easy fix. I know that Zenith used V-M at least through the early 70's - when I was in college I had one of V-M's last designs badged "Zenith" in (of all things) a '65 GE console stereo.