Phonoland

I was walking through our local fleamarket and spotted this Zenith High Fidelity system (actually I heard it first, it had an oldies AM radio station playing). The seller said he purchased it at an estate sale a few years ago and it's been sitting in his barn since then. It's probably not worth what I paid for it, but as a music and technology fanatic I knew I needed it in my living room.

The phonograph works but seems to skip quite a bit, especially towards the beginning and end of a record. Also, the needle seems to fall out a lot (the seller thought he lost it but luckily for me I took the back off and found it inside). Besides there's only a few minor cosmetic issues (a few minor scratches and the Bass/Treble lights don't work).

I don't know much about it, or record players in general since there's probably many people my age who've never even seen one before, but I attached some pictures including the model info from the back. If anyone knows more about this unit I'd be very interested to hear.





-Steve

One: Don't count on the fact that in its present condition it'll continue to operate.
Get it overhauled... it'll need re-capping, changer work, etc.
Anything that age (1962ish) is in need of such work, trust me.

Two: Until such work is done, refrain from using it, even though the urge to enjoy it is hard to deny.
Many times I've seen the results from neglect when a customer brings vintage stuff in my shop and now has to fork out big bucks for a burned-out power transformer and tubes, on top of the other needed work.
If it was brought in for a checkout and restoration before that happened, the costs would be much less.

It's like buying an old car and driving it without getting anything done to it... would you trust it for a long road trip?