9/08/2012

Sansui Model 7070 Thrift Store Find

A couple of weeks ago I was at a thrift store and ran across an old radio shack scanner. I attempted to see if it worked and using an ac adapter I found at the trift store I went to the testing table to plug it in. There was some old guy just standing looking at something on one of the shelves. I said excuse me and plugged the scanner in. It did not work. Then I noticed another scanner exactly like the first (even down to the missing battery cover). I tried that one and it did not work either. Then I noticed this:
It was on the shelf below and I went to pick it up. The old guy taps me on the shoulder and says "I'm checking that out". "I'm sorry, what?" says I. "I'm checking out that stereo" says he. "Oh, I did not know" says I. Not knowing what it was I wandered around and kept a close eye on it as it was very heavy and looked like it was from the 70's. Heavy is good when it comes to stereo's, and this one weighs about 40 pounds. Anyways... he worked on it for another 5 or 10 minutes then walked off, having not got it to utter a sound. I immediately walked over and hooked up a random speaker I found near by and fiddled with the knobs until I moved the one that was for the speakers from "off" to A and BLAM! sound. I turned it off again and took it straight up to the cashier. I got it for a VERY good price.

I took it home and hooked it up to a pair of speakers and it worked just fine, except that 5 lights did not work. when I opened it up to blow the dust out and check for bad capacitors and any scorch marks I tapped the lights and 2 of them started working again. leaving the middle dial light, the needle light, and the right light in the right channel power meter. I looked it up and found that it is a relatively high end stereo for the time it was made. There was one on ebay in cosmetically better shape and with all the lights working that was going for more than $200. So I cleaned it up a bit video taped it working. It sold yesterday for a lot more than I paid for it.
The one problem is that it sounded so nice I regret selling it. Oh well, hopefully the guy who bought it will enjoy it more than I would have.

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