Amperex Bugle Boy tube???

[jmillerdoc]

I found 3 of these tubes in a stash of tubes I recently inherited from a pt of mine who passed about a week ago, age 81. May his soul rest in peace. He was a good friend and mentor in building tube amps and such. He gave me about 600-700 various tubes he collected over the years 2 months ago, most of which are fairly common and good tubes or TV type tubes. These three here were found in a box, with 30 or so other tubes, in the garage after he died. His wife called me today and asked me to come over and pick the rest of this stuff up.

I have heard of the Amperex Bugle boy 6DJ8 and that they are almost untouchable price wise. Of course when I looked at these and saw they were the Amperex and 6DJ8 I immediately noticed the little tube man playing what appears to be a trumpet.

Of course you now understand why and what I am asking......are these the famous "Bugle Boy" 6DJ8 tubes???

They all test strong on my Hicock tube tester (given to me by same pt who recently died).

Just wondering if these are worth keeping and if this is a story to brag about.

Thanks!
Jeff

[danFrank]

If any of the white lettering / design rubs off, their value goes to ZERO. HA HA HA!
Honestly, they are good old stock tubes, use them or sell them. It's all relative. It all depends on what you want them for (sound or money).
The fame / notoriety of tubes stems from what somebody is willing to pay for them and write about them in order to perpetuate said myth.
They were well made tubes. Period. Nothing magical about them. Don't feed into the hype.
By the way... I have 30+ of these NOS in original boxes and I don't feel the need to brag about them. Ooops, I just did!
Have fun.
Daniel

[dsavitsk]

Sorry for your loss.

It's impossible to know without seeing the internal construction. For instance, I have a pair of "Made in Germany" Amperex 6922's that are actually made in Hungary by Tungsram and rebranded.

[jmillerdoc]

Well, I guess I should have looked at eBay first. There are some of these Amperex Bugle Boy 6DJ8 tubes listed for fairly reasonable prices and others are off the charts ($300 for a couple or so tubes). Is there anything particular that makes some of these tubes more valuable than others or are the sellers just insane?

What I do know about 2of these 3 is they are NOS, probably from the 1960's. the other one appears to be slightly used but tested the same, about 105-110. I know he hadn't bought a tube in over 30 years so that makes them at least 30 years old. They were also manufactured in Holland. the used one has a "D" getter, the other 2 are "O" getters. The pins have some gold tone to them but are not solid gold.

Anyways, still curious if they are anything special. They are of course special in that they were a good friends and they were given to me, but beyond that, I am not to sure.

Sincerely,
Jeff

[dsavitsk]

If you post a picture showing the internals at AA someone will be able to tell you what they are.

[planet10]

Amperex tubes are typically made by Philips*, what are the 3 letter codes near the bottom of the tube.

*(my tube guru says, "Amperex never built a tube in their life" althou i understand that before they were bought by Philips they did)

dave

[Eli Duttman]

Philips bought Amperex of Hicksville, NY in order to qualify as a supplier to "Uncle Sugar's" DoD.

FWIW, Hicksville made 7308s are well regarded. Prices for those "bottles" have skyrocketed, like those of other desirable NOS 6DJ8 family tubes.

[danFrank]

Originally Posted by jmillerdoc

Amperex Bugle Boy 6DJ8 tubes listed for fairly reasonable prices and others are off the charts ($300 for a couple or so tubes). Is there anything particular that makes some of these tubes more valuable than others or are the sellers just insane?

Sincerely,
Jeff

As for Ebay sellers... The ones that start out an auction for 99 cents and let the demand dictate price are the good guys. The sellers that put up 2 tubes with a starting buid of $300 aren't insane; they're just greedy pigs. If you track such auctions, rarely do they get a bid (depending on what tube they are selling), which makes me question if these sellers REALLY want to sell what they have. There is a lot of psychology that goes on with different selling methods used on Ebay (once in a while, an insane buyer will buy those two tubes for $300). The sellers in the know, that know the value of what they are selling just let demand dictate price.
As for NOS tube prices... Like I said before, hype is what dictates most of it. The funny thing is that a lot of NOS on Ebay actually isn't; it's just a term that catches bidder's eyes.
You have good tubes in your possession. The value of them WILL NOT go down. If you sell them now, you will probably get a good price for them. If you sell them down the road, you will get an even better price for them. Old stock just keeps getting rarer and fetch higher prices.
I have sold many old tubes on Ebay for crazy prices, but I really wish I had held onto them as the prices they would go for now are from double to 4 times what I got for them. In the future, they would have gotten even more.
Daniel

[jmillerdoc]

Good to know, I actually have an amp I am changing the driver cathode resistor to in order to run these 6DJ8s. It is the KT88SE some of your are familiar with.

I won't be selling them anytime soon, heck, they were given to me. I still have a job so, if that changes down the road I may get rid of them. Other than that, they are staaying as a part of my permanent collection. I wasn't asking the value in terms of what I could get for them (well, that might not hold tru if one somebody offered an insane amount), I was just curious if they were indeed something valuable.

Thaks for the input.

BTW, the letters at the bottom (somebody asked), well there are 2 I can read...looks like an R and and F. There are also 3 numbers at the bottom "011"
Cheers!

[TheGimp]

From what I've read, the 6DJ8/ECC88 works well in Cascode configuration for audio, and is one of the few that does.

Seems like I first saw it in "The Radio Amateur's Handbook" back in the late 60s, and more recently in Morgan Jones "Valve Amplifiers".