I was contacted yesterday by a gentleman who wants to sell his Zenith 420 radio. Everything appears to be there. The top has some water damage and will have to be refinished.
I'd appreciate hearing about any concerns any of you might have with this radio.
Would you also let me know if you think it is a good radio to restore? I know it is 10 tubes and 2 speakers. It appears to be AM only.

Any help you can provide is appreciated!
Thanks
Chris

The early 30s Zenith sets are pretty good sets when right. Not too difficult electronically, although the push-button assembly can be a pain in the ___ (rhymes with grass) to adjust. Parts are tough to find for these sets.
The twin speakers give decent sound for a 1932 set, but don't expect high fidelity. I would definitely make the set electronically safe by replacing the electrolytic and wax paper caps, and verifying/replacing out of tolerance resistors.

I have a model 775, which is similar to your set, at night it easily receives distant broadcast stations.

The 420 is a decent radio. Nothing really unusual other than it has a separate tube as an AVC amplifier. Still many other brands had this feature as well.

As TA Forbes mentioned, these radios have a definite lack of bass in tone quality.
They don't have the deep tone the later 30s models have. Considering it uses two speakers and 59s in the output, it is a little disappointing.
It is not to say they sound bad, but Philco radios at the time sounded better.

My personal opinion, it is due to the small 1/2 inch voice coils in the 8" and 10" Utah speakers Zenith used.

The dial drive mechanism has a pair of gears that can be disengaged for automatic operation. The tuning knob must be pushed to one side to disengage.

If you like the radio, by all means get it! You don't see the early Zeniths near as often as the Big black Dial models.

-Steve

TA and Steve, thank you for the information. I'm a mid to late 30s Zenith collector, so this isn't what I normally look for. My wife, however, loves this style of cabinet. I call it a Victorian look. I showed her pictures of it and she really likes it. And since my wife lets me keep bringing home any radio I want, I like to make sure she is happy as well.

Does this radio have the canned caps filled with tar? I hope not, but if so, I can deal with it.

Thanks again!
Chris

Nope, it is new enough to use separate electrolytics. I think they are also under the chassis so there are no cans on top.

Yes, it its a beautiful ornate console with 6 legs and sliding doors over the dial and the speaker grill. The 775 TA Forbes mentioned uses an almost identical cabinet, except lacking the door over the automatic tuner mechanism and associated door pulls.

Kind of irrelevant, but the 420 chassis, while identical to the 410 and 411 circuit-wise has a different tube arrangement to accommodate the auto tuning mechanism. This was the last year (1933) Zenith used mechanical automatic tuning. The 1934 models all lack the mechanism, and it wasn't compatible with the airplane dial arrangement of the 1935 models.

So it wasn't until the 1939 models that automatic pushbutton tuning feature returned on Zenith radios.
It is odd that Zenith tried to corner the market on the feature only to abandon it for 5 years. I guess it wasn't that popular?

-Steve

Wow that is great information! I'll post pictures when I get it. I'm in the middle of cataract surgeries (one done, one to go), so it will be a couple weeks before I see it.

Chris

Agree. If you like it, go for it! And like I said, mine pulls in many distant stations. Oh yes, your 420 should also have an "extended" BC dial that goes to 1750KC.

The tuning meter was out on my 420 console. I managed to rewind it, unfortunately with too little wire. Strong signals make it close halfway. At least it works... I had no problems setting up the push buttons. I'm missing the shield that screws onto the rear of the chassis. Fidelity's not so great, but it seems to have great sensitivity and selectivity. All my other superhets with 175 kc IF do too!

I guess the 410, 411 and 420 share a common schematic. But there are two different chassis layouts. Funny, the Zenith book by Cones et al doesn't give more than one chassis number for these three models... Oops, azenithnut already answered that question.

Here are two photos of my 420. Yeah, it is filthy!

-Steve

Steve, thank you for the pictures! I really appreciate them. I will be going to look at it on Tuesday. The pictures I have are cell phone pictures, and don't really give me the detail.

Do you have a picture of the back? I'd like to know what to expect on the chassis and speakers.

Thanks again!
Chris

No problem! Glad to help! Thank you for your interest!

Here are two photos of the back and chassis. The cover over the speaker connections on the right hand speaker is loose. Also, someone cut a notch in the back chassis cover on the lower right, that shouldn't be there.

-Steve

Steve, I can't thank you enough for the pictures. Not being familiar with this set, I've printed these out and will take them with me to look at the radio. There are a lot of details here that I want to make sure I pay attention to! These pictures will be my reference manual.

Thank you!!!
Chris

There are photos of my 607 on RadioMuseum. The speakers look like this (ignore the pin plugs that someone added):There may also be a screened back on the cabinet.

Nice set! It looks like your 607 has the same chassis my 775 uses. They are a pretty good radio considering their vintage. Their downfall is the use of two smaller speakers. I believe one larger speaker would have achieved better sound quality.

Dual speakers were "in" at the time. And that cabinet design doesn't have much room for a larger grille.

1931-32 was a tough time to be basing your business model on high-end radios. I expect it took Zenith more than a year to dispose of their inventory. The six-leg (half octagon) cabinets went out of style fairly quickly, as much as I happen to like them.

Back to the title: I don't see any "cons" to these sets; I think they're quite impressive.

Alan, your Zenith 607 has the 2033 chassis and uses 12" Jensen speakers. The Zenith radios with the 2033 chassis were the only ones of that series with a pair of Jensen's. All the other had a pair of 10" or 8" Utah speakers. The Jensen's probably sound MUCH better than the Utah's as they have 1" voice coils rather than 1/2". My 619 (same cabinet as your 607) has this chassis and speaker arrangement, but I don't yet know what it sounds like due to a fried power transformer. I need to find and figure out a reasonable replacement and get that radio operational again.

Both the 10 tube 2030 and the 12 tube 2033 chassis were arranged differently than the rest to accommodate the automatic tuner mechanism and had a hypoid gear arrangement to allow disengaging the tuning knob for automatic operation.

-Steve

I got it! The top is rough due to an aquarium sitting on top, but only the finish has issues-the veneer is fine. Everything is there including the auto tuning section. The feet are supposed to be round but most of the pieces have come off. He kept them all, so I have them and will glue them back on. The speaker cloth is ripped but the speakers are in great shape.

The gentleman I got it from has had it for 41 years. It was a wedding present for him and his wife. He is now partially disabled, and wanted this to go to someone who will bring it back to life. I told him I would do that, and send pictures when it is complete.
I also got a spare set of tubes with it.

Thanks again to all of you who gave me the information I needed to make sure it was complete!!!

Chris

Excellent! Congratulations!
It looks to be all there and other than the finish on the top, looks great!
The feet were a problem on these cabinets. I've seen it happen to many of them.

I'm glad you were able to get it!

-Steve

Chris,
I see you have the set now. It looks like its all there. I had one of these until selling it last year. Mine had many cabinet issues that I did not feel up to taking on.
I did restore the chassis though, and it was a good sounding set when completed. One thing I did not like was the gear drive linkage between the knob and the tuner gang. It had brass gears, and were susceptible to stripping and wear.
This set also uses series of tubes that, while not rare, are somewhat uncommon.

Paul, I got a full set of spare tubes for this radio. I am very pleased, as I know the 50 series tubes are not that common. It is going to be fun to restore this one. My wife saw it when I got it home, and she has convinced me to make it my next restoration, as soon as I finish my chairside. I have over 20 radios, and she loves them all. When she decides she really likes one, I make sure it is a priority.

The old finish is very very dark, and it has enough problem areas that I'm going to have to strip it all the way down before bringing it back to the way it should look. I'm really curious to see what is underneath!

I'm hopeful that the chassis is functional. As I go through the recap I'll make sure everything works, and hope nothing is broken. I did get an envelope with the radio from Zenith in 1970 with the schematics and parts list. Too cool!

Thanks again!
Chris