Ok I love my vintage Zenith TV but....

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kevinpreston8

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...this seems insane.

I have this EXACT same TV in just a tad slightly different cabinet (it amazes me that they made so many cabinets that were just a touch different).

Look at the price it went for! I don't care what he replaced, my picture looks just the same. Shill bidder or what?

Old TVs typically, unless they are something wild, go for nothing.

What do you guys think? I know someone else here (Versatronic??? geez I have a terrible memory) has the same year also with a THIRD type of cabinet).

In my back office, I have this TV with my mint original Predicta set ontop of it. Does that make it a $1000 stack at these crazy prices?

 
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That's truly a beautiful TV set there! All the work he put into that set is what made it go for that much. A ragged-out dusty yard-sale special that's all out of convergence and blurry (or not operational at all) probably wouldn't fetch hardly anything. Now, I'm not saying your sets are in that condition, but just like cars, many people get unusually high hopes that their collectibles will return big money when they are in poor condition.

There are things I have noticed that will make a big return, be it washers, electronics, or any vintage article The biggest thing is that there are not cosmetic blemishes. While one may be able to replace internal parts with modern pieces and make a working device that may even perform better than it's original design, cosmetic parts, that don't change functional performance, usually cannot be repaired, or if they can, cause major, obvious changes in appearance. You all I know have had the agony of trying to restore a control panel on a vintage appliance!

Another thing that will make a good return on investment is if the device is repaired and serviced to a good enough state so that a person can give the appliance "everyday" service without any hassles...in other words, a vintage device has to perform as reliably as a modern device. In a TV, this can be an extreme challenge, since old TV's, even when they were new, required fiddling and tweaking to achieve a good picture.

I'm really glad that TV sets are starting to become collectible. Like you said, For the longest time, old televisions were considered junk, when oddly enough, the radios from the same era were actually desirable. Sadly, because of this, people didn't put the time and effort into saving televisions and many were lost. I'll hafta post some pictures of my "Brady bunch" style Zenith television. It's a 1974 vintage console set with a ultra-sleek modern cabinet. It has no knobs on the front, they are all under a door. The set has "space command" remote control that has motors that turn the tuners and volume controls. It's a "hybrid" set with a combination of transistors in low power circuits, and tubes in the high power/high voltage sections.

I think it's neat that televisions were sold very similar to automobiles and even white good appliances back then with all their different cabinet designs to the same electronics. As any of you guys familiar with cars know, vintage vehicles were changed every year in appearance, but their mechanicals stayed very similar. I think this was a great element of American industrial design that gave people a great choice of products, yet at the same time allowed for reliable, servicable, good performing products.
 
This is a 1963 Zenith model. One of my aunts had the same exact model, bought in summer of 63'. I believe that Zenith discontinued the "fishbowl" screen and went to all rectangular tubes in 1965 or so.
I'm trying to remember if this set has the anti degaussing circuit built into it or did you have to have the serviceman come out peridocially to degause it and reset the convergence? I know that with the early color sets as they "broke in" the convergence would drift slightly.
 
This is a 1963 Zenith model. One of my aunts had the same exact model, bought in summer of 63'. I believe that Zenith discontinued the "fishbowl" screen and went to all rectangular tubes in 1965 or so.
I'm trying to remember if this set has the anti degaussing circuit built into it or did you have to have the serviceman come out peridocially to degause it and reset the convergence? I know that with the early color sets as they "broke in" the convergence would drift slightly.
 
Its a very nice Zenith "round jug" set-I don't think its worth $350-even if it works well and is in good condition.At one time-I found an RCA set similar to this one-same style cabinet-round pix tube-in a DUMPSTER--for FREE-and the machine worked!!!It took three people to get it out.Sadly the set got stolen when I stored it at a radio station transmitter site that got broken into while I was moving to another home.Its to the point sets like those are of interest only to collectors-not users.A "user would want a newer -solid state rectangular picture set.I don't see them anymore in swap shops or Salvation Army stores.they are interesting and fun to work on.For the "daily driver" will stick to a modern set.Those oldies are good for watching old TV shows and movies on.
 
Definitely not a shill.

The buyer has puchased a bunch of vintage TV's before. I don't have any zenith TV's anymore, just predictas. I think maybe Veg-o-matic has one. I have a great Zenith record player, but that's it.
 
I would say this is a later model than '63. A '63 would most likely have VHF tuner only; UHF tuners were required by law in '64. This set probably does have an automatic degaussing coil. Even on the sets that lack one, re-degaussing is usually not needed unless the set is moved (earth's magnetic field changes)
or a magnet is brought near.

There does seem to be more interest among TV collectors in the round color sets. Most I got for $5 or $10...did pay $50 for an RCA CTC-11 in black lacquer cabinet. These sets are getting pretty rare to find as unfortunately I think many have been discarded.
I think the only interest in old TV's AT ALL is among old TV restorers and enthusiasts...most non-technical people I think would just as soon buy a new LCD at Wal-mart rather than a used set.
 
Misc comments

Last night, went out to the back house and fired up both the Predicta and the Zenith. Predicta has a great screen image (just using crummy onboard antennas on both) but scratchy sound, again might just be because of the antenna.

The Zenith has an ok pic but needs some adjustment for color, and the fact that I am using an added on, lousy and broken antenna that my dad had affixed to the back of the unit in about 1975, I am surprised I get anything at all!

The light in the channel selector had been burned out years back, so I got inspired to change it last night. After measuring its voltage (6.5 V AC) I went down to Radio Shack and got some tuner cleaner and new bulb.

Now the ghostly, cool back lit, projected channel indicator glows again. It's a little thing, but not having it was bothering me.

So I wonder if that makes my set worth $400 now?

:-)

On dates, I can get the date we got it from my mom, as she has old journals where she wrote down all major purchases, which is really cool.

I remember we moved from our one house in 1964 to a new house in Spring of 1965. We got that TV set then, new. Now it could very well have been last year's model that was leftover stock, but I know it was brand new.

I have been trying to find a brochure for that line and will keep looking.

I believe the other gent here that has one mentioned that his cabinet, which to me looked great, was a cheaper non-wood type material, perhaps it was a BOL model, but aside from the cabinet, it was again, exacly the same.
 
For several years, I had an old Zenith cabinet that I had busted the innards out of and put my new TV into. It looked fairly authentic, and was quite a conversation piece. The cable guy freaked outh when he saw it. :-)

But the trouble with old TVs (and computers, for that matter) from a thrift store persepective, is that no one wants them and they are very hard to legally dispose of, so the thrifts won't take them anymore. Add to that that Seattle and Washington State both have strict environmental laws, and won't accept them at the dumps. I'm told that Bellevue, across the lake, is much more sensible, and will pick them up for free because they don't want to deal with the illegal dumping problem that Seattle has (go figure)

But here's the kicker: I'm friendly with the manager of the St. Vincent De Paul store a few blocks from our house, and you would not believe the JUNK that people leave there after hours: Not only electronics, but stained mattresses, trashed pressed-board furniture like Ikea or Wal-Mart sell, broken exercise machinery, etc. It's bad enough dry, but let it get rained on, and you have a soggy, heavy mess.

It used to fall on them to pay for disposal, but the county is now doing it for free.

Sorry to take it off-topic, but I like the styling on the old TVs, and would love to find another cool old one, but they hardly ever get into the loop because of the dumping problem.
 
Not exactly the same

I had assumed that all the electronics were identical. Evidently, my model is one step up, and features the amazing "Peak Pix" control, whatever that is. Perhaps mine was TOL, or his has some other features that I have not figured out yet. Interesting...my control panel is on the right.
 
That Predicta....

Is almost exactly like mine, but I don't have the UHF. Mine is in outstanding original condition.

I bought it for $300 about 9 years ago. I used to have it set up down the wall from my new Predicta, which is our everyday TV, but concerns of my son pulling it down, both for his safety as well as the condition of the TV, I moved it to the back house.

What a price!
 
Adams Appliance Store 1935-198?

Hi Kevin,
the "Peak Pix" was a sharpness control. I worked for an RCA/Zenith dealer from 1971-1977. We scrapped lots of old console tv's and stereos, that were traded in back then. If it had the round picture tube (1965 and older) it went out to the alley. If it had the newer style pix tube (1966 and newer) we repaired some and sold as used.
The Zenith trademark was the "hand crafted chassis" All other manufactures had gone to PC boards by then. Zenith held out for quite a while before finally using PC boards also.

The store that I worked at was founded in 1935. They had sold the first colour set in Indiana. It was a 1954 RCA console. After it was traded in on a new set in the early 1960's, the owner of the appliance store kept it and it was stored in the basement of the store. I can recall going down there and checking it out a few times. It was HUGE!! The back came off for servicing, as usual, but the whole top of the set came or also, for service! Very unusual early colour set. The store was demolished for downtown renewal in the late 1980's. I often wonder what all was buried when the basement was filled in. There was all kinds of treasure down there!
 
Zenith never used PC boards on tube type radios or TV's (to my knowledge)...that old large 1954 color set would have been a RCA CT-100. The Early Television museum in Columbus has some working examples.

Home Page

early television
www.earlytelevision.org www.earlytelevision.org
 
this was the one!

Thanks Greg,

This is what that HUGE 1954 colour set looked like! I can recall how the screen looked small, even though it was a 21" roundie. The cabinet reminded me of a giant B&W set of the early 1950's The top as well as the back came off that big boy.

btw: I did not mean that Zenith ever used PC boards in the tube sets. When I started working at Adams Appliance Store in 1971, the chassis were down to one or two tubes for both RCA and Zenith. Within a couple years both manufactures were building all solid state TV's. Those Zeniths that were solid state were no longer the "hand crafted chassis"

Magnavox, and a few others that I recall that used tubes sockets mounted in the pc boards sometimes used to have problems with the pc boards getting brittle and even burning away around some of the tube sockets. Our tv service man used to splice solid copper wire from the replacement tube socket to the circuit on the pc board in those cases, to make the repair. The whole set, or the chassis would have to come into our shop for repairs like that.
 
The only vintage TV sets that get me really going are the old ones with the tuner/amplifier in a lower box, and the tube suspended on a metal framework above it. I *think* I've seen modern equivalents of this classic 50's design, but they tend to be quite pricey.

And of course the happening thing in modern TV's is the flat panel plasma or LCD hi-def TV. I'm waiting for prices to drop a little further before I get a big one to hang above the mantel in the living room, so I can unblock the fireplace from the entertainment center that lives there now. There is still the issue of where to put all the associated electronics - reciever, DVD/VCR player/recorders, but maybe those belong in the family room/home office anyway.
 

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