"Old" I337 Galaxy S4 failed to root and now won't boot normally

I have two ATT I337's and wanted to root them both. The first and newest one worked fine but it has a busted screen and is locked. It was my test run and went very well except for the wifi problem that many others had trying to load towelroot from the net. Btw, it would be helpful to all going forward if someone would edit those instructions to download say towelroot first!!! I found a solution that I will post later.

Unfortunately my second and primary phone failed early in the process. After I loaded NC1_Stock, it would only boot to either the Recovery menu or the Odin menu. I have tried loading NC1 again, tried NJ4, tried safe mode (will not load), pulling the batt, factory wipe (ouch) and then tried emergency recovery in Kies. NOTHING is working. I did notice that the sticker in this I337 has NO serial number! So with Kies I used the serial from my broken one, on the second one. Unlike my other one which has a serial number on the sticker. So I am not sure if this is an older model, a refurb or what.

I must admit that I did NOT check the original firmware version when I started this process.

In any case I am looking for ANY options to get my i337 working again. Are there any other firmware versions to try? (link pls) Anyone? A phone that only goes into recovery or Odin mode is not much fun!