[Jayce]

Just picked this up this evening from another collector. Radio repair friend called me about it last night.[attachment=1][attachment=0]
The other collector was wanting to part this unit out as he seems to have a dislike for the radio-phono sets. My buddy had done the basics on the chassis, replacing the shorted put 6x5's and electrolytics, only to find the radio is a very good performer without touching anything else. In fact it played for over 6 hours the yesterday without issue and played great this evening as well. He didn't see a reason for it to get chopped up for parts and called me, since I seem to have a soft spot for these units. So, now it is sitting in my bedroom down here in the house. If it performs here as well as it did up there, I will no longer have a reason to miss Marion's Attic!

[TA Forbes]

Nice find, Jay!

[Tom Hamilton]

I'm glad your friend called you. Sounds like he is a real friend. That looks pretty nice. It would have been such a shame to part out a perfectly nice console with a great radio.

[Jayce]

I'm glad your friend called you. Sounds like he is a real friend. That looks pretty nice. It would have been such a shame to part out a perfectly nice console with a great radio.

Yeah, he is. He figured I might be interested in it and I bit. The guy who owned it wanted $200 though and I almost balked until I heard it playing. Yeah, might have gotten better on the price but it has become my daily driver radio.

[Arran]

Not a Zenith fan but that set looks complete even down to the original record changer, why part something like that out? It even looks like the burl or stump walnut is real, many Zeniths from this era used that cheesy dienoc faux finish in place of that sort of veneer.
As for the 6X5s, lets just say that Zenith did some very stupid things with their power supply designs in both radios and TV and using a pair of 6X5s in place of a 5Y4/5Y3/80 was just a bad design, along with using undersized power transformers in their sets.
Regards
Arran

[Jayce]

That's what my friend and I thought, it's too good to part out. The grille does use the photo-finish on it, but it's in really good shape. Has a little flaking, but considering this radio came out of a damp basement, that's not bad at all. Cabinet-wise, it's in good condition. A few minor veneer chips on the front, missing one door knob. There is a big chunk of veneer gone off the back top that I will have to address, but seems common for the Zeniths I find around here. The venneer has curled a bit on the one record storage door, but not bad. I am going to remove the door soon and reglue that back down.