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Cipher Cipher is offline
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Default tell me if this is a good deal..

so theres this old tv repair guy who , one day in 1987, after working till
2am on a TV Set, getting frustrated, turned off the lights in the shop and
never walked back in.

he has around 900 never used, still in boxes tubes... thousands of used
ones, about 10,000 photofaxes and electronics manuals, gobs of capaitors, a
dual trace bk oscilloscope and about 3 tube testers... he was a repair guy
in germany too, worked on MK001 computers with tubes(said there were guys
whose sole job was to walk down the isles of this thing(it was huge) and
replace tubes as they burned out) he says to me, you can take the whole
shop, everything for 2000.00 ... what do yall think?

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Ian Bell[_2_] Ian Bell[_2_] is offline
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Cipher wrote:
so theres this old tv repair guy who , one day in 1987, after working till
2am on a TV Set, getting frustrated, turned off the lights in the shop and
never walked back in.

he has around 900 never used, still in boxes tubes... thousands of used
ones, about 10,000 photofaxes and electronics manuals, gobs of capaitors, a
dual trace bk oscilloscope and about 3 tube testers... he was a repair guy
in germany too, worked on MK001 computers with tubes(said there were guys
whose sole job was to walk down the isles of this thing(it was huge) and
replace tubes as they burned out) he says to me, you can take the whole
shop, everything for 2000.00 ... what do yall think?



Depends what you want out of it and how much effort you want to put into it.


You could certainly sell many of the tubes on eBay but they'll sell
better and for more if they are tested and you'll need to store them
while you sell them. I reckon that's a fair bit of work in itself.

You might be able to sell the capacitors but I don't think you'll get
much for them.

There's a good market for manuals but just listing them on a web site
will take a lot of effort - if there are plenty of good ones in there
you might be able to sell them to an existing vintage data sheet supplier.

As I said, depends what you want out of it and how much effort you are
prepared to put into it - that will far outweigh the 2000.00 asking
price IMHO.

Cheers

Ian
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JP JP is offline
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"Cipher" wrote in message
.70...
so theres this old tv repair guy who , one day in 1987, after working
till
2am on a TV Set, getting frustrated, turned off the lights in the shop and
never walked back in.

he has around 900 never used, still in boxes tubes... thousands of used
ones, about 10,000 photofaxes and electronics manuals, gobs of capaitors,
a
dual trace bk oscilloscope and about 3 tube testers... he was a repair
guy
in germany too, worked on MK001 computers with tubes(said there were guys
whose sole job was to walk down the isles of this thing(it was huge) and
replace tubes as they burned out) he says to me, you can take the whole
shop, everything for 2000.00 ... what do yall think?


I guess it depends upon your motivation. If you don't have shop equipment
and would use it, $2k might be worth it for that stuff and the NOS tubes.
Since he's a TV guy, don't expect to find a lot of the sought after audio
(phile or fool) tubes in there, but you're likely to find a good number of
GP duotridoes and some of the compactron tubes from the later TV years make
for interesting audio projects. Likewise the power transformers and such
used in tube TVs would be suitable for some audio amp projects. That is
likely not most of the stuff you'll be buying though. The vast majority of
what you will get will be "interesting" junk, unless you find "the" right
buyer.

JP


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Peter Wieck Peter Wieck is offline
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On Jan 11, 2:19*pm, Cipher wrote:
so theres this old tv repair *guy who , one day in 1987, after working till
2am on a TV Set, getting frustrated, turned off the lights in the shop and
never walked back in.

he has around 900 never used, still in boxes tubes... thousands of used
ones, about 10,000 photofaxes and electronics manuals, gobs of capaitors, a *
dual trace bk oscilloscope and about 3 tube testers... *he was a repair guy
in germany too, worked on MK001 computers with tubes(said there were guys
whose sole job was to walk down the isles of this thing(it was huge) and
replace tubes as they burned out) he says to me, you can take the whole
shop, everything for 2000.00 ... what do yall think?


Sorry for the late reply - but Ian and JP have covered most of the
bases.

$2,000 from miles away seems like a lot of money for TV-centered tubes
and equipment. Unless you know what you are looking at and have a good
idea of the specifics, the tubes new tubes *might* be worth on-average
$1 each. And to get that, you will have to sort, test and advertize
them. The used tubes are worth perhaps $0.25 each on-average, same
conditions.

Paper is a moving target. There are those that covet it, either
onesies/twosies or as a lump but again you will have to sort and
advertize.

Equipment is entirely different. If this shop is (was) well-equipped
and has such items as an oscilloscpe, signal generator, tube-tester,
various meters, soldering station, signal tracers and all those parts/
pieces/items, good lighting hand-tools - you might find yourself a
ready-made, fully-equipped bench at a relatively low cost. Everything
in working-condition, of course.

Your call. Without a list of stuff and an idea of its condition there
is no way we might advise you other than generically as we all seem to
have done. But one last word of warning - I have seen such 'bargains'
in the past that have been cherry-picked such that what remains while
huge in volume was minimal in utility or value. I have made such picks
myself in my time - high-value stuff goes out with me (for which I pay
a small premium for the privilege) but the diminuation in volume and
is not discernable. So be aware of this.

Good luck with it.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA
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Sal Brisindi[_3_] Sal Brisindi[_3_] is offline
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Default tell me if this is a good deal..

Peter Wieck wrote:
***SNIP***
I have seen such 'bargains'
in the past that have been cherry-picked such that what remains while
huge in volume was minimal in utility or value.


***SNIP***
Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA


Just like the bargain I bought this weekend, 500 45's records for $50.00
(He was asking $85.00)

When I went to pick the records be mentioned he buys these big lots and
keeps what he likes, oh. oh... bad sign number 1.

I get the records home, mostly crap! Englebert Humperdinck anyone... :-)

Sal


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Iain Churches[_2_] Iain Churches[_2_] is offline
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"Sal Brisindi" wrote in message
...
Peter Wieck wrote:
***SNIP***
I have seen such 'bargains'
in the past that have been cherry-picked such that what remains while
huge in volume was minimal in utility or value.


***SNIP***
Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA


Just like the bargain I bought this weekend, 500 45's records for $50.00
(He was asking $85.00)

When I went to pick the records be mentioned he buys these big lots and
keeps what he likes, oh. oh... bad sign number 1.

I get the records home, mostly crap! Englebert Humperdinck anyone... :-)


Ah! The ubiquitous Gerry Dorsey.
I worked as an engineering assistant on some of those
recordings.


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[email protected] bretludwig@ymail.com is offline
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Default tell me if this is a good deal..

On Jan 11, 1:19 pm, Cipher wrote:
so theres this old tv repair guy who , one day in 1987, after working till
2am on a TV Set, getting frustrated, turned off the lights in the shop and
never walked back in.

he has around 900 never used, still in boxes tubes... thousands of used
ones, about 10,000 photofaxes and electronics manuals, gobs of capaitors, a
dual trace bk oscilloscope and about 3 tube testers... he was a repair guy
in germany too, worked on MK001 computers with tubes(said there were guys
whose sole job was to walk down the isles of this thing(it was huge) and
replace tubes as they burned out) he says to me, you can take the whole
shop, everything for 2000.00 ... what do yall think?


Sucker bet.

Service grade test equipment has no cash value-VTVMs, signal tracers,
any TV specific stuff. That stuff brings $5 at hamfests. Old scopes
are very very cheap unless they're Teks and even then they are getting
cheap. Only military, AVO or Hickok tube testers have value and no TV
shop had them.

Photofacts-very little value except for vintage audio pieces.

The tubes-they are probably 95% worthless series heater string types.

You can't win with these old TV shop types or their wives.
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[email protected] bretludwig@ymail.com is offline
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I guess it depends upon your motivation. If you don't have shop equipment
and would use it, $2k might be worth it for that stuff and the NOS tubes.


Hamfests are way cheaper.


Since he's a TV guy, don't expect to find a lot of the sought after audio
(phile or fool) tubes in there, but you're likely to find a good number of
GP duotridoes and some of the compactron tubes from the later TV years make
for interesting audio projects.


No market value.



Likewise the power transformers and such
used in tube TVs would be suitable for some audio amp projects.


Nope, most TV power transformers have the wrong B+ voltages.


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Patrick Turner Patrick Turner is offline
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Peter Wieck wrote:

On Jan 11, 2:19 pm, Cipher wrote:
so theres this old tv repair guy who , one day in 1987, after working till
2am on a TV Set, getting frustrated, turned off the lights in the shop and
never walked back in.

he has around 900 never used, still in boxes tubes... thousands of used
ones, about 10,000 photofaxes and electronics manuals, gobs of capaitors, a
dual trace bk oscilloscope and about 3 tube testers... he was a repair guy
in germany too, worked on MK001 computers with tubes(said there were guys
whose sole job was to walk down the isles of this thing(it was huge) and
replace tubes as they burned out) he says to me, you can take the whole
shop, everything for 2000.00 ... what do yall think?


Sorry for the late reply - but Ian and JP have covered most of the
bases.

$2,000 from miles away seems like a lot of money for TV-centered tubes
and equipment. Unless you know what you are looking at and have a good
idea of the specifics, the tubes new tubes *might* be worth on-average
$1 each. And to get that, you will have to sort, test and advertize
them. The used tubes are worth perhaps $0.25 each on-average, same
conditions.

Paper is a moving target. There are those that covet it, either
onesies/twosies or as a lump but again you will have to sort and
advertize.

Equipment is entirely different. If this shop is (was) well-equipped
and has such items as an oscilloscpe, signal generator, tube-tester,
various meters, soldering station, signal tracers and all those parts/
pieces/items, good lighting hand-tools - you might find yourself a
ready-made, fully-equipped bench at a relatively low cost. Everything
in working-condition, of course.

Your call. Without a list of stuff and an idea of its condition there
is no way we might advise you other than generically as we all seem to
have done. But one last word of warning - I have seen such 'bargains'
in the past that have been cherry-picked such that what remains while
huge in volume was minimal in utility or value. I have made such picks
myself in my time - high-value stuff goes out with me (for which I pay
a small premium for the privilege) but the diminuation in volume and
is not discernable. So be aware of this.

Good luck with it.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA


I have just about all the tubes I'll ever want for a long while.

Before last Xmas a 66 yr old guy in Sydney who's been making tube amps
for a dozen years decided to reduce his vast surplus stock of
transformers he had wound especially for tube amps mainly because he is
moving from a big house to a poky little flat.

I have around 600kG of transformers for sale.

I posted details of some of what I have before Xmas at
http://www.turneraudio.com.au/for-sa...nsformers.html
http://www.turneraudio.com.au/for-sa...nsformers.html

I have included what I think are fair prices, and full details and many
notes about the products, but so far no takers.

I don't give a **** if the whole darn lot end up being tossed into the
re-cycle bin if I can't sell them.

There have been hundreds of ageing electronics workers with businesses
which became valueless when the switch to solid state
happened after tubes, or during the last few years when the business
owners or workers got old, died, of just failed because of very cheap
Chinese made crap you don't bother repairing once its out of warranty.

A prudent electronics business gets rid of its excess stock just before
the stock becomes useless and valueless.

But many e businesses just don't bother, because it costs a shirt and
trouser load of time and money to sell their stock which has become
commercial junk of **negative value**, ie, you really have to pay
someone to take it away to get rid of it.

I have bought some stocks of tubes worth buying when people have
emailed/phoned me to offer me a "large amount of tubes".
But not before I have discussed what they have.

And the only way I will buy a pile is to offer $3.00 per tube for say
twin triodes with 9 pins, and on the basis that they send all they want
to sell to me, and I will then spend a day testing the hundred they have
sent. I will return all the ones which fail to meet high standards. I
will include some indication of the reason for failure, N = noisy, M =
microphonic, N&M, both the former, S = short, and so on. I will include
a cheque for the tubes I want to keep because they are indeed NOS, or
are replacements that have been pulled from gear after not having been
used for very long before the gear they were in was scrapped, like a TV,
radio, or a telephone repeater station.

This sort of trade has happened only once.

I know a guy with 25,000 tubes. For 30 years he went to all the auctions
of tubes as the armed forces disposed of spares and TV stations dumped
old gear etc.
He's got stuff that's valuable if you wish to restore some old radio.
All the audio tubes are long gone, cleaned out 7 years ago when word got
out he had a few good ones, $5 for big ones, $3 for small ones, plus
postage. He's now 75. If he dies tommorrow, the lot might be crushed to
fit the huge dumper bin for safe deposit into landfill; I doubt the
recycle value of materials is worth much and the thorium and barium in
cathodes and gettering, plus other stuff like mercury makes it toxic
junk.

But I have been offered many boxes of assorted tubes and nearly every
box full has 90% of tubes only usable in TV sets or which are quite worn
out. Many nice clean tube boxes turn out to contain the old tube pulled
from a TV set; the repairer has squirreled the old tubes carefully away
in the mistaken hope that one day some magic cure can be applied to make
the tubes have a second long life, and therefore be worth something.
Nobody is ever going to want to watch a B&W TV again when people are
happily buying huge plasma screened sets for thousands of $$.

If someone says he has a lot of tubes and is so fukkin lazy he can't
even make a list of the tube numbers and approximate gae and condition,
then don't buy anything unless you can see the tubes when you visit to
pick them up, or you negotiate a sale to get the tubes **before** paying
for them and only pay for the good ones as I have said above.

An old painting by Leonardo might be worth something, but an old vacuum
tube isn't ever going to become very valuable.

( Personally, I like the girls at the local supermarket better than Mona
Lisa. When they ask "How are you?" when I bring a basket of goods to the
counter I say " Oh, much better now I have seen you..." And they give
me kind of suppressed smirk when they glance at me just like Mrs Mona
Lisa, so for me that old painting has no value. I don't need no old
paintings; I got the real thing right here ).

I also recently took reciept of a pile of component bins full of R,C,
bjts, connectors, and much else from a guy going out of business.
Its taken a long car drive to get it, and 2 days to rationalise my
existing bin system and to build shelving. I've incurred a loss.


Patrick Turner.
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Peter Wieck Peter Wieck is offline
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The Brat must have just gotten out on work-release. One hopes he
violates his parole soon and is taken back under a rock where he
belongs.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA


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[email protected] bretludwig@ymail.com is offline
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On Jan 13, 6:05 am, Peter Wieck wrote:
The Brat must have just gotten out on work-release. One hopes he
violates his parole soon and is taken back under a rock where he
belongs.



Smoking a little weed again are we? I think your stash has been
spined with Johnson grass.
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Cipher Cipher is offline
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wrote in
:

On Jan 11, 1:19 pm, Cipher wrote:
so theres this old tv repair guy who , one day in 1987, after
working till 2am on a TV Set, getting frustrated, turned off the
lights in the shop and never walked back in.

he has around 900 never used, still in boxes tubes... thousands of
used ones, about 10,000 photofaxes and electronics manuals, gobs of
capaitors, a dual trace bk oscilloscope and about 3 tube testers...
he was a repair guy in germany too, worked on MK001 computers with
tubes(said there were guys whose sole job was to walk down the isles
of this thing(it was huge) and replace tubes as they burned out) he
says to me, you can take the whole shop, everything for 2000.00 ...
what do yall think?


Sucker bet.

Service grade test equipment has no cash value-VTVMs, signal tracers,
any TV specific stuff. That stuff brings $5 at hamfests. Old scopes
are very very cheap unless they're Teks and even then they are getting
cheap. Only military, AVO or Hickok tube testers have value and no TV
shop had them.

Photofacts-very little value except for vintage audio pieces.

The tubes-they are probably 95% worthless series heater string types.

You can't win with these old TV shop types or their wives.


I saw, and bought a box of 12AT7 tung-sol tubes, and know that he has a
whole wall full of "audio" tubes..12AT, AX, AU, EL84, yadda yadda.. but
he has a good many mullard, telefunken, and a couple of brands I didnt
even recognize. the box I purchased(8 tubes for 15 bucks) looked to be
brand new(well, never opened. 2 of them are in my little jolida at the
moment. He repaired radios too, and actually many of his tubes came from
his radio repair days in Germany.

he also has a couple dual trace oscilloscopes(bK) , a couple of ??tv-7
tube testers, and a bunch of other equipment that I didnt know what the
hell...

anyway, I pulled the trigger, going to load it all up this weekend. it is
a damn whole barn full of ****. I dont care if I got screwed, I have a
lot of stuff to play with, hell..and enough AT/AX/AUs and the ilk so that
I will likely NEVER have to buy another tube. When my mastersound comes
back, itll be set for life too.



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