Hello,
Hopefully I am posting in the right area as I am new to this forum and the hobby of radio collecting/restoring. I recently purchased these two items at a public auction but am a little hazy on what the exactly are.
The first item is a Zenith AM/FM radio, I believe a b835e.

It is in a bit of rough shape and non functional but is it worth fixing? What would be the value of this item as it sits compared to that of it fixed up?

The next item is the one I'm unsure about. It's an Emerson "Phonoradio" with Model 800 Series B written on the back (I believe this may just be the tube model though). I've scoured the Internet but cannot find any that replicate this one. It does operate however the needle on the arm has fallen off.
Again, what would the value be as it sits and is it worth fixing up?


Thank you for the help!
- Angus

The Zenith is something from the mid 50's I am guessing, and looks a bit rougher than I would like to see for a restoration job. And it also depends on the internals. Rusted? Busted? Looking at it right now it looks like something you might fix up if you like that radio, but it would probably be uneconomical, in that the work and parts needed to fix it up might be beyond actual value. But if it is something you want to fix and keep, it may be worthwhile to you. The Emerson phono looks nicer. You can usually get a new phono pickup or substitute that will function in that sort of thing. It would be nice if you had a bunch of old 78 records to play on it, for fun and historical interest. You can often buy stacks of 78s for chickenfeed and listen to unknown or obscure old gems and even sometimes find somethings significant in the lots. So I would say the phono is the best of the pair but perhaps you should examine it closer and maybe post it on the phono section on here.

Welcome to the board!

Hopefully you didn't pay too much for the Zenith. It's value, given that you say you are new to this hobby, would be in practicing restoration, cosmetically and electrically, on it. If you do it right, of course it will be worth more than the junker it is now, but as mentioned above, you won't make anything on it. The "profit" would be in learning restoration techniques.

I would agree that the phono looks to be a keeper. After you have stumbled around with the Zenith, I would suggest recapping it's amplifier, fixing the tone arm situation, and restoring the wood finish.

I really like the looks of the Emerson phonograph. It looks as if it uses a Voice of Music (VM) changer. It is an early model, but it may possibly have 33 and 45 RPM. As there is an LP in it, I bet it does!
I don't see any radio dial on it, nor do I see a volume control. Possibly on the right hand side?
Though, with a name like "Phonoradio", it may possibly be an AM transmitter to "wirelessly" play records through your radio.

As mentioned, the Zenith is not a high value radio, but when restored, those have great sound. Only problem i see is you will loose the markings on the wood when refinishing it.

Certainly worth learning on!

-Steve

Those Zeniths are great sounding radios, very good audio for the era, and they are not too difficult to restore. I've restored two of them and one of them is my daily driver in the bedroom.

The cabinet is a very simple wood box easy to restore. Remove the old finish with Minwax Antique Furniture Refinisher from Home Depot, add a coat or two of matching stain, and finish with spray lacquer. I'd repaint the knobs as they look pretty bad.

You can easily replace the cloth on the front of the radio with something from a fabric shop. Using 3M 77 spray adhesive to glue it to the backboard.

The radio is not too hard to restore as it doesn't have a lot of capacitors, but the design makes restoration a little awkward. The knob in the center of the dial is NOT the tuning knob, but the tone control. The tuning knob is the right hand knob. If the selenium rectifier is bad or not putting out the correct voltage, you have to move the speaker and tone control out of the way to replace it.

Here's a thread on a similar model I did a while back that may give you some ideas:

http://www.antiqueradios.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=164363

Thanks! I'll hang onto the radio and slowly work on putting it back together into working condition, to serve as a wall piece.
The phonoradio I'm probably going to just re-sell...does anyone have an idea on the cash value of it?

Check completed sales of record players (all categories) on eBay to get an idea of what similar sets have sold for.

Value would probably be less than ten dollars each. If repaired and restored to full a full concours finish, you would probably have to fight, scream and beg to sell them for $50 each. Parts for restoring each would cost much more than that. For radio collectors, this is the kind of stuff most of us pass on unless we need parts. That isn't to say that they aren't nice sets that will function well when restored, it just won't be a (cash) profitable experience.

I was at our local radio club auction a few weeks ago and the majority of the phonographs, maybe all of them, went unsold...real dollar value on either is fairly low. Probably in the $10 to $20 range.

I agree with a previous poster, the Zenith is a great sounding radio when it's working. I have a similar one that I use in my garage and have picked up a couple others for $5 or less along the way.