• WARNING: Tube/Valve amplifiers use potentially LETHAL HIGH VOLTAGES.
    Building, troubleshooting and testing of these amplifiers should only be
    performed by someone who is thoroughly familiar with
    the safety precautions around high voltages.

Over Four Tons Of Tubes

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Yea, I probably should have just cherry picked the 6HV5s (to go with the couple I already have) and a few VR tubes, but I couldn't resist the temptation.

Now I'll spend tens of hours testing junk tubes to get a few good ones.

Oh well, keeps me off the streets and out of the bars. Probably cheaper in the long run as well.

Looks like I may end up with a few 6U8s and 6X9s.

Almost all of the output tubes are 6AQ5s, 50C5s, 35C5s, and the like.
 
Considering the statement about some tubes shown not being there, (which implies they are cherry picking the lot) I suspect there will be few real treasures in the lot.

I don't have more than 40# of tubes, and once filtered for junk it will take days to test all of the possible good ones. I can't imagine testing 100X as many.

How many months would that take?
 
I can see that some collectors are being lured in with the thought of "discovering" rarities etc. Believe me, the rare and valuable tubes will NOT BE THERE unless they've passed unnoticed in the main triage! This is quite a considered sale by somebody who knows what they are doing - they're not going to leave WE 300bs in a job lot like this.

I think buying a whole lot of tubes like this would only interest a dealer who already has an established clientele and distribution network. Ask yourself why no dealers have bought the tubes at the price sought.

Speaking more generally, I think many enthusiastic tube collectors buy job lots and end up with over 1,000 tubes. When sanity takes over and they realise that 80% of them actually don't get used in experiments and just sit in boxes and cupboards for years, the decision is made to empty out the stash and just keep the genuinely valuable tubes that go up in price and a selection of commonly used tubes to build with. In reality there aren't that many types of tubes that go up and up in price. Maybe a hundred - maybe not even that.

andy
 
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Testing brings up an interesting questsion.

Given that a GM test type tube tester is used, and not simply an emission tester, what does the target value in a tube tester mean?

Is it nominal, such that +/- 20% is expected?

Is it minimum acceptable value?


as for me, as long as there are no tell tale signs that the tube has been used, gettering flash good, filament ok, then i take those tubes....
 
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