RCA tombstone with SW and a mystery Zenith

[walyfd]

Friend of mine in the Poconos found these and is wondering what they may be worth. He runs a flea market for his church. I told him NOT to plug them in. The Zenith looks especially interesting.

[walyfd]

Photos won't post...

[walyfd]

Yikes... phone being cranky

[electra225]

The Zenith will be full of rotted rubber wiring, potentially with green crud in the transformers and coils. The RCA would make a nice radio when it's done. Electrical condition is unknown, right? I am admittedly cheap, but I wouldn't, personally, be interested in the Zenith if they paid me to take it, but the RCA might be worth $50, since it at least LOOKS nice. There are those who got all excited about both makes, so they should both be easier to sell than some. Good luck with the sale.

[Firedome]

Not to be the contrarian, but I'd have to say the opposite, the Zenith has aesthetic appeal to me being rather clean and modern, while the RCA is over the top heavy looking and overdone, to me it looks like it should be a small organ with a keyboard where the knobs are...LOL, imho! As to the innards, no idea as I tend to stay away from pre-war radios in general.

[electra225]

I tend to avoid Zenith like the plague, hence my comments. The cabinet on the RCA is one of the nicer ones they made. This is not from a stricly asthetic sense, but look at the grain in the wood. That cabinet will look really nice when it's done. The front of the Zenith looks like photo finish to me.

You're not being a contrarian, Roger. Everybody has their opinion and sharing those opinions is why we are here.

[William]

I believe the Zenith was one of their lower/cheaper units. The RCA, more deluxe. I rebuilt a very similar RCA for a friend I have known since 2nd grade. It was his Grandparents, then to his parents, and now him. At some point it will go to one of his kids. It was a deluxe model. It has inputs in the back for both a record player and a TV. There was a control on the front that switched from radio/mulitple bands, to phono, to TV. Great sound, and it pulls in lots of stations. The cabinet, like the one in the thread here had nice wood.

Bill

[electra225]

I just noticed the Zenith has the new FM band, so it is a lot newer than the RCA.

[Firedome]

Also the Zenith has no SW bands it seems, so makes sense it's a lower line unit, not pre-war but around 1948-50 maybe?

My parents gave me their old upright RCA radio/phono console, very dark and heavy looking, around 1957 when Dad got his first "Hi-Fi", a handsome H-K Recital (mono - see pic) receiver with a separate Collaro rp in it's own case with closing lid and a corner speaker kit that he finished with a JBL 8" (!) full range speaker. They let me have the big and bulky RCA in my BR and it was my first intro to music other than on a car or table radio. I remember liking the glowing tubes in the back. It had that boomy bass typical of big open back floor radios, I think a 10" or 12" full range with smallish magnet speaker. It was fun to listen to the AM stations (FM was almost entirely classical then, and I don't think it had FM band anyway) and play the records I had, many of them story-type themes mixed with songs and music or novelty songs like "How much is that doggie in the window?" (my favorite). Previously I had some kind of little portable before that but no recollection at all of what it was!

[hermitcrab]

I have that RCA .. I believe it is model K-29?... never seen a zenith with that kind of dial before

[TC Chris]

I like 'em both, but then I'm not very picky. The Zenith is newer and has a dial much like Philcos of that early '50s vintage. The RCA may actually have had a speaker baffle back; I've got a '38 model that does. And the H-K is cool.

Chris Campbell