Tube Manufactures Cross references

[Trout]

Hello Guys,

I have a question.

Does anyone have a few links to sites that might give some specifics on Cross referencing Branded tubes to actual manufacturers?

For instance,
I have a quad NIB of 6V6GT's From Zenith. But I doubt Zenith actually made them. I know Tons of tubes were re-branded back in the day By bigger manufactures for 100s of companies, But Im having a heck of a time determining Who Made What for who.

Also, Date codes,

Same Tubes as above Codes read 3 8 top row 1 1 middle row &
2 3 Bottom row.

Any information would be of great help.
Thanks
Trout

 

[Tom Bavis]

Code is vertical. 312: Sylvania, 813:1958 (maybe '48...), week 13.

More here: EIA Codes

 

[Trout]

Picture

Heres a picture of a pair of the bases on these tubes.
More importantly though, Trying to figure out who made them.
Was Zenith actually a tube manufactire? I thought if memory serves, That Zenith tubes were made in france?
I figure these are decent tubes and most likely in abundance over lots of others.
Trout😀

 

[Enzo]

I wouldn't assume that all Zentih 6V6s were necessarily from the same factory anyway. They might be RCA one year and Siemens the next. The OEM just needs a reliable supply of good tubes at a good price, so the tubes were commodity items.

 

[fdegrove]

Hi,

The OEM just needs a reliable supply of good tubes at a good price, so the tubes were commodity items.

Exactly....
Which is why you won't find any cross-reference listings on that.

The tubes in the pic are most certainly made by Sylvania however.

Cheers,😉