Jen and I were walking the girls earlier when we came upon a very shabby looking garage sale. Broken filthy crap all over outside, an old truck full of old junk being loaded.
But inside the garage..
The old man's family was helping him move out. I didn't find out where to, probably with one of them or to a retirement community. Jerry was a radio operator on a merchant marine ship in WWII, then became a radio and TV repairman in civilian life. Nice old guy. Hard of hearing, but still sharp as a tack.
He had a treasure trove of old tube equipment, test equipment, ham radio.
Analogue VU meters, old cable shielding, a biig tube amp, a tube radio, power transformers, tube testers, even his "we use RCA tubes' case full of more tubes, plus four more shoe boxes of tubes.. frickin' bingo.
Some of those 12ax7a tubes, commonly used in guitar amps and the like, are worth between 50 and 150 apiece, but most fall between 4 and 30 each.
I picked up everything for $200.
Well, everything except his Heathkit oscilloscope and working tube ham radio with antenna And I'm goin' back for that next week.
So as soon as I catalogue it all, stick it in a spreadsheet, look up current market values, I'll be selling off most of it.
The rest.. well, there's things like this:
http://www.cgs.synth.net/tube/index.htm l
=]
But inside the garage..
The old man's family was helping him move out. I didn't find out where to, probably with one of them or to a retirement community. Jerry was a radio operator on a merchant marine ship in WWII, then became a radio and TV repairman in civilian life. Nice old guy. Hard of hearing, but still sharp as a tack.
He had a treasure trove of old tube equipment, test equipment, ham radio.
Analogue VU meters, old cable shielding, a biig tube amp, a tube radio, power transformers, tube testers, even his "we use RCA tubes' case full of more tubes, plus four more shoe boxes of tubes.. frickin' bingo.
Some of those 12ax7a tubes, commonly used in guitar amps and the like, are worth between 50 and 150 apiece, but most fall between 4 and 30 each.
I picked up everything for $200.
Well, everything except his Heathkit oscilloscope and working tube ham radio with antenna And I'm goin' back for that next week.
So as soon as I catalogue it all, stick it in a spreadsheet, look up current market values, I'll be selling off most of it.
The rest.. well, there's things like this:
http://www.cgs.synth.net/tube/index.htm
=]


Comments
-Chris-
you be lashing together a machene of ultimate honkey noise for the ultimate noise justice!
XD
When all the tubes were all put together they covered an area 5 ft wide, 3 foot back, and one foot deep on the table top. Only one shoebox worth were loose, all the others are in their labeled original boxes, albeit many are used.
=]
I wonder if there is going to be a need for old used IC chips.
It seems like the best items are the two you have not picked up yet. a oscilloscope and ham radio & antenna would be a nice items to have. but I feel that the net really killed the ham radio, unless you are on a island, but even on a boat or island you can connect to a satellite so I guess it's satellites that helped kill ham radio.
have you visited this site yet?
association for Amateur Radio
http://www.arrl.org
But yes, the ham is on my list.
In case of EMP, I'll still have communications. ;]