United brand, "made in England", really E European/Russian?

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I've always been under the impression that a lot of 70's vintage beam
power tubes marked "made in England" or "made in Holland" were actually
made in Eastern Europe or Russia and marked with funny countries of
origin just so they could be imported.

These seem to show up particularly in the "United" brand boxes but I
also see these funny markings associated with no-name companies like
"Standard Brands" etc. too.

Have I really been off-base with my presumptions? I'm sure that my
presumption is based entirely on something I heard at a hamfest in the
early 80's, and a lot of the other stuff I heard there was complete
hogwash too :-).

Tim.

[maxhifi]

> wrote in message
ups.com...
> I've always been under the impression that a lot of 70's vintage beam
> power tubes marked "made in England" or "made in Holland" were actually
> made in Eastern Europe or Russia and marked with funny countries of
> origin just so they could be imported.
>
> These seem to show up particularly in the "United" brand boxes but I
> also see these funny markings associated with no-name companies like
> "Standard Brands" etc. too.
>
> Have I really been off-base with my presumptions? I'm sure that my
> presumption is based entirely on something I heard at a hamfest in the
> early 80's, and a lot of the other stuff I heard there was complete
> hogwash too :-).
>
> Tim.
>

I have an Amperex 6V6GT, and also an Amperex EF86 which are both Russian
tubes, and marked Made in England
I also have a Realistic Lifetime (radio shack) type 80, which is clearly an
indirectly heated tube, and also clearly
Russian made, but marked Made in England.

I've had varied experience with Russian tubes, some are good (Svetlana
EL34), some are bad (Sovtek 12AX7)

[Ned Carlson]

maxhifi wrote:

> I have an Amperex 6V6GT, and also an Amperex EF86 which are both Russian
> tubes, and marked Made in England
> I also have a Realistic Lifetime (radio shack) type 80, which is clearly an
> indirectly heated tube, and also clearly
> Russian made, but marked Made in England.

Before about 1990, there was a very high (like 35% or so) import
duty rate for importing goods from the USSR into the USA.
That punitive duty didn't apply to most of the EU, so a lot of
Russian tubes bound for the USA were transshipped via England
and western European countries, to avoid the duty. Most
Customs officials, not being tube aficionados, and tubes
not being a huge share or international commerce, didn't know
or care... but, in fact some of the places that imported Soviet
tubes that were mislabelled as not being Russian, got busted.
Unca Sam may not care much about tube provenance, but he
does want his tax money...

--
Ned Carlson
SW side of Chicago, USA
www.tubezone.net