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Sorting Audio Tubes out of a large Radio tube collection

kcline

kcline

Tube Audio Collector
My partner in all things radio received from the estate of the late Les Goldberg his garage collection of radio tubes, he also got his Hickok 539-C tube tester. Les was a regular at Kutztown every time it was held, he died the Monday after the last Kutztown meet which he did attend but only for one day. Les was a professional repairman who worked on radios only, he did work on a few audio items for me and was so busy he asked me NOT to give out his name for audio work he did not have time to do. Here are some pictures of audio types we found, there were also many collectable tubes that were found and two-way tubes audio anDSCN1755.JPG DSCN1756.JPG DSCN1758.JPG DSCN1759.JPG DSCN1760.JPG d radio like 45, s 50, s and others. Check out the EL-37s first I have found in a long time. KT-66, 7027-A ,7189, 7591DSCN1757.JPG and 6550. We were told collection was all radio ,well there was NO TV trash.
 
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Thanks for the comments. I started this discussion to show what is possible to find in a "radio tube" collection. I did not expect to find any audio tubes in this collection as Les told he had sold them all many years ago. Here is a picture of one the rarer collectable tubes I found a pair of #65 NOSDSCN1706.JPG DSCN1707.JPG These were for car radio around 1931 1932 or so. Tube was obsolete when it was made.
 
This topic has reminded me of a project I've been stalling. I also have a sizeable collection of tubes from the 1930s to 1970s, including a large RCA factory box, with thick double walls, filled with tubes from the 30s. Grandpa repaired radios back in the very early days and gave me many tubes, of which I've added to in my earlier days.

Any suggestions regarding good sites to visit for pricing information will be appreciated. Being old now, I'd rather give some money to my children rather than outlive stuff I'm not using. Thanks in advance.
 
If you're looking for pricing references for less-common tubes I'd check tube sellers that stock a lot of non-audio stuff. Vacuumtubesinc and vacuumtubes.net come to mind. They charge real bulk prices as opposed to the fanciful stuff Ebay sellers sometimes come up with.
 
kcline said:
Thanks for the comments. I started this discussion to show what is possible to find in a "radio tube" collection. I did not expect to find any audio tubes in this collection as Les told he had sold them all many years ago. Here is a picture of one the rarer collectable tubes I found a pair of #65 NOSView attachment 2615501 View attachment 2615502 These were for car radio around 1931 1932 or so. Tube was obsolete when it was made.
Click to expand...
Better for home use, balloon globe tubes proved too fragile for auto service, which brought about the shouldered style with upper element supports.
 
I still have all of these no plans for them yet. I also found another pair of KT-66 so I now have a quad
 
I have been using el37 in a single ended amp and they work great, even when the design is not optimized for them. I have preferred them over the kt66 in the same amp but they both seem to be rugged tubes. 7 watts per channel of goodness. The el37 seem to offer more extended range and detail. Enjoy the tubes.
 
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