Mullard EL34-Authenticity Verification

[Kenneth Zhu]

I am a newbie and a tube teller tries to convince me to buy a pair of Mullard EL34 as shown as the pic. Are they real Mullard EL34?

[CaliforniaBob]

if there's a hole in the locator pin in the center of the bottom
of the tube then it's a Mullard. I see a hole in the right tube.
check the left tube for the hole.

Bob

[EC8010]

Originally posted by CaliforniaBob
if there's a hole in the locator pin in the center of the bottom of the tube then it's a Mullard. I see a hole in the right tube. check the left tube for the hole.

Trouble is, it's not beyond the wit of forgers to drill a hole...

The printing seems rather smaller than usual. It's certainly different to my only remaining Mullard EL34.

[martinab2]

Printing size and font looks unusual if these are 'real'. Any clues from the boxes?

[richwalters]

I believe Mullard (yesteryear) took the trouble to print a code date of manuf on the tube. it's quite low down and pretty small.

Caveat Emptor.........I believe Sowtek or some other manuf in Russia recently bought the original Mullard logo and other rights. I don't agree with this.....So now the clones will be harder to distinguish for the real oldies and what happens next is anyones guess.

richj.

[alexistheo]

the new production "mullards" from new sensor say "made in russia" on them.

[EC8010]

Originally posted by richwalters
I believe Sovtek or some other manufacturer in Russia recently bought the original Mullard logo and other rights. I don't agree with this..... So now the clones will be harder to distinguish for the real oldies and what happens next is anyones guess.

I quite agree. You could expect a particular standard of performance from an old Mullard - and get onto the manufacturer (who had a reputation to protect) if it wasn't any good. To call current production a "Mullard" and use the original packaging is a sham.

[Majestic]

A cursory glance at the plate structure looks sorta ok.

But I do agree that the manufacturer printing looks wrong, which would at least make me somewhat warey.

Sadly, all my own EL34's and EL37's are in storage at the moment so I can't directly compare them for you now.

Without being an EL34 "expert", however, the next thing I'd ask is what the dateodes are that are printed (or better yet - and more likely if genuine - "etched") onto the tube. A photo of the said datecodes would help with authenticity determination since I've seen some of the fakes, attempt to duplicate the datecodes too ( -- badly, fortunately).

If the EL34 does not have the codes, you are probably looking at something else non-mullard. (Though to be fair, sometimes, there was very faint printing.)

This vendor is claiming this particular set to be Mullards. They look very similar in structure to yours, but again, note the different printing.

Sorry my post wasn't of more help.


(P.S. I'm rather upset with the whole rebranding "legal sham" thing too grrr! )

[tubelab.com]

Beware, New Sensor is selling "Tung Sol's" also.

[Kenneth Zhu]

Thanks for the authentication work. Fortunately I took a bottom-view pic on the day when I visited the shop. Maybe it will be more helpful to distinguish this eerie-looking Mullard. But anyway it is very cheap, less than $10.00 each. The vendor claims that he has gathered them from milltary warehouse junk.