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Fair Price to Pay for Fisher 500/800 C Series

MouseMaster

MouseMaster

Active Member
Can anyone give me a ballpark estimate as to a fair price to pay for a Fisher 500 or 800 c series? This being for something complete and cosmetically presentable, unrestored, with tubes, and still functioning. Does all original Fisher tubes boost value? (I would think so). How much do missing knob caps detract from the value? Having to restore, recap, etc does not bother me at all. I'm already doing that with RCA 45 players and New Orthophonics, and tube radios.

Thanks in advance, everybody.

Just grabbed a Fisher Mono 500. Looking forward to trying that out.
 
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FYI, questions of value go in the Dollars and Sense forum. But I'd say that 400 bucks is a fair price for a nice 500/800C. If it's loaded with Telefunken 12AX7s, that will boost value quite a bit. Original knob caps are nice, but I don't think it hurts too much to be without them.
 
Thanks JT. I checked closed auctions in EPay too. Some of the prices were all over, as I suspected they might be. Looks like they're averaging 500 - 650, and a few in the 400s. A couple at the 900 mark, but I think they were EPay noobs bidding too early and running the price up.

I'll see what comes along.... Thanks again!

Oh, thanks also for the scoop on the correct forum folder to put this in. The mods moved it for me. I'll find my way around eventually!!
 
The wood case makes about a $150 difference in the value of Fisher receivers. The 500C that went for $900 is abnormal, I don't know what was up with that. It seems that nice pictures make a big difference in price on the 'bay. I paid 500 for my restored 800-C a year ago, but that was from a friend.
 
Saw two 500Cs go a while ago -- one for 405, the other for 511. I was hitting the bid on the second one, since it was local, but I was already outgunned before I finished pressing the button. :sigh:

I'm checking two 800Cs, but two amateurs are bidding the prices up, and these are long from completed. Might go too high. :sigh: We'll see what happens the last minute. The main action is the last 10 to 15 seconds.
 
Well, the two 800s went. They were both good cond, clean, no cases. He was selling the case separate for 150. First was mostly original tubes, RCA outputs. I went for the second one, which had 100% all original tubes and was a little cleaner. Outgunned very last second. First went for 611, second for 737. Same guy who took the first tried to get the second one too. I outbid him. I had the second one until a sniping service took it literally last second. It just went higher than I was willing to go. There will be others.
 
Jailtime said:
I think it was noob bidders. And the 800C that went for $737 was an extremely rare large numbers version. Only the third one I've seen.
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Whoa. Never knew there was a difference. To me, the difference between these two was not evident given the way they were photographed and presented. I would have gone higher had I known it was a rare one and of any consequence. I only went for that one because it was a little bit cleaner and had all of its original tubes. To me that means it might not have been used very hard or very often at all. According to the owner, both of them were still functioning perfectly and were in at least occasional use in the past two years. Oh well...... there will be others.
 
I honestly don't know if the large numbers dial is worth more, but it is extremely rare. If owning something rare catches your fancy, then I suppose it's worth the extra cost. I'm a Fisher nut, so I would attach a premium to the large numbers 800C. But $737 is pretty high for any unrestored Fisher receiver, wait until the Christmas rush is over to pick off a nice one.
 
I thought it was getting high too. I had a 10% off coupon though which would have knocked close to 100 off easy by the time it was over, so that helped me go as high as I did. But having a rare version would be cool. Like I said, I was struck by how clean it was - quite noticeably cleaner than the other - and THAT one was real clean!

BTW, I have a decent model 500, the mono one, coming. It has the original Walnut case in good condition, and I know there are Mullard outputs still in there. I have a 1959 RCA Victor Stereo Orthophonic companion speaker (12" driver with two 4" tweeters in a nice cabinet that matches the main console) I'm going to use to try it out with, since my Altecs are packed away.
 
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