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Determining Rare Vintage Receiver Value & Price...

R

raynmanwerks

New Member
Greetings Audiokarma,
I am a new member, but a frequent reader of this site. I am a quasi audiophile, with a long history of acquiring, testing, fixing but mostly listening to audio gear. Today I would like to pose a question to your collective esteemed wisdom. Many years ago I inherited a reciever - a monster. It got packaged well and went into storage. Forgot about it frankly. Well, moved recently and discovered that I have in my possesion an Hitachi SR-2004 Series E am-fm stereo receiver from 1978 in great shape! I took it to a vintage restoration electronics house and has it cleaned, tested and inspected for componants that look to be failing or tested week. It cam back to me in pristine shape, all original parts, except a few small caps replaced by the repair team. Cosmetically its a 9 of 10, only small bubble in the top veneer.
I researched for some time to discover that it is ranked by some to be the 5th most powerwul recievers made duding the reciever wars of the late 70's. And while not well known has a feature set and output capacity that is astonishing - 200wpc, tested at 230wpc burstable to 400w per channel. Well its hooked up to 4 x 300w KLH speakers and is unbeleivable in its clean power - shakes the walls without a sweat..
ebay is all over the map. There was 1 unit out there for 2800 bucks. I checked again recently and say 2 more ranging from 1500-2000 bucks..Apparently this is truly a gem and rare to find, but I want to price it right and ideally sell it on craigslist. But at what price? to a collector or officianado are these prices on ebay realistic?

Now dear freinds, if you have knowledge of this unit specifically or can offer advice generically related to your experience with vintage gear - What kind of a price tag would suit such a unit. Thinking I would like this to be a good deal for someone - dont want to be a snob on ebay and hang out there forever with a top end price tag waiting for a collector to come along. Waddya think would be a fair range to consider pricing it at? Just need some advice in this area. Thank YOU!
 
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Sounds like a beautiful & desirable unit. Suggest checking SOLD listings on eBay rather than "Completed" listings which will give you an idea of what the receiver actually changes hands for; "asking" prices are otherwise pretty much useless.

Incidentally you should be aware this is a topic for the "Dollars & Sense" subforum - not Solid State, however posting a question about an item that is potentially for sale by the Original Poster (OP) is generally not allowed either. Better to pose the question as a hypothetical "how much is x worth". Hopefully the mods will cut some slack being a first time poster.

Hope this helps and welcome to AK.
 
I see 3 on EBay at the moment. Your $2800 unit has been dropped to $2100, there are also units for $995 and $1500.

I've always like the looks of those, although I've never heard one. CL prices tend to be lower than EBay, so my WAG would be around $1,000. A lot of it might depend on the area you're in.

GLWTS.

bs
 
Sorry to be a killjoy. But rules are rules we all have to abide by. This is not the right place to be discussing monetary values of anything..
 
You might want to edit out the selling it parts of your first post.

Primary prohibition:
ANY discussion or mention whatsoever, no matter how subtle, of anything that you intend to sell, or anything in which you have any involvement is absolutely forbidden.
 
I'm not a huge fan of the industrial design of Hitachi's receivers but the technical credentials are impeccable and the 2004 is the best looking of the bunch. I have to believe you can get at least $750 for it in its present state. Should be worth 5x that IMHO but buyers don't seem to agree, LOL.
 
A unit that old needs more than a few caps replaced for that asking price. Doesn't make sense to pay a couple grand just to have it rebuilt a year later.....meaning there is no real value for vintage equipment and the price you get is what the deal is when it's done. If you were living in San Jose California I'd say your going to get to get paid but not everyone lives in Silicon Valley with deep pockets. The other thing is damage due to being transported through the current mail systems. If it gets damaged in transit you won't get paid at all.
 
The problem with getting 4 figures is the lack of cache. Currently fashionable name brands, like the Sansui and Pioneer receivers, even the big ones, languished for quite a while at lower prices. They are plentiful enough that a cottage industry was able to support their rise to their current popularity standards. And their price rise was at least in part because of the rising popularity of all the other audio gear made by those companies. Not that Hitachi was a slouch, but their audio brand was not as popular in the US. This is in part because they private-labeled much of what they imported.
 
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