RCA CTC7 Grenoble The Rest of the Story

[Ampico-kid]

I guess some of you might be wondering how the story of the RCA CTC7 Grenoble on CL in the Syracuse, NY area finally ended.
(http://www.videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=249763)

Well, let me fill you in. Initially I wasn't real interested in the set because I already have a beautiful CTC7 Pensbury that I acquired from a fellow VK member last year. But the more I thought about it, the more my interest was piqued because of the fact this set was one of the first to offer a remote control, and the fact that the set looked to be in pretty good shape and wasn't all that far from my home base in NJ.

Apparently, like so many other interested parties, I sent an e-mail to the seller only to find out that he had changed his mind about the price and was "entertaining" offers. I wasn't about to shell out a whole lot of money, and so I sat back and waited for while. Many weeks went by and eventually the seller posted some pictures of the set and it looked pretty good. He also made a vague reference to the fact that he was looking for early vintage audio equipment and might be interested in something like that to "sweeten the deal".

I just happened to have an early intergrated tube hifi amplifier manufactured by one of the major hitters of the 1950's and early 1960's that I acquired from a customer who upgraded to a more modern system some 30 years ago. The amp is in great shape and was simply sitting on a shelf in my attic collecting dust. After several more e-mails and some creative bartering, it was decided to make an even swap, my amp for his RCA CTC7. The amp didn't cost me anything when I acquired it, so in effect the TV cost me nothing, and the amp cost the seller nothing. We swapped units and we both walked away happy campers.

I made the trip to the Albany area to pick up the set Saturday and am now the happy owner of two CTC 7's waiting for restoration. Both of the sets have very strong 21CYP22 crt's. The Grenoble has a replacement tube that I believe was installed in 1962, and the other set, the Pensbury has the original tube.

Here are some pictures of the Grenoble as it arrived and was unloaded early Sunday morning. The only defect I can find on the set is the missing "D" for the word Deluxe on the front of the set.

























And here's a photograph of the Pensbury....................





I can see that I've got my work cut out for me. If real "work" were only this much fun!!

Bob