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Post by Papa Juan (lanier816) on Oct 3, 2017 19:07:09 GMT -7
So, I travel a lot for work, typically I'm gone 80-85% of the year so it's safe to say I don't "sight see" anymore like I did my first two starry-eyed years, maybe the occasional antique store, haha!! Either way, the excitement I encounter on the road is usually found in a good local restaurant, soft pillow in the hotel or more than 3 pieces of excursive equipment. Today however, was all together different. I was searching the parts room with my site contact looking for some much needed parts for the job, no luck, another very different and boring story, either way, while he was talking with another tech about where we could procure such supplies I got nosey, like I always do and began looking through dusty old drawers for nosey sake and that when I found them, a dusty drawer with dusty boxes full of Vintage Tubes. Apparently, around 40+yrs ago this plant had some monitoring equipment that were basically radios, they were updated and removed, all parts were forgotten, until I found them today. When my contact saw me trying not to geek out over these dusty little glass bottles he asked what I'd found, when I showed him, he said "Oh yeah, I forgot we had those, we haven't used that equipment in over 40yrs, someone will probably just throw those away the next time we do inventory, grab a bag and take as many as you want." All in all I wound up walking away with: (5)12AX7's (4)12AU7's (1)12AT7 (1)12AY7 (2) Misc. tubes I thought looked cool and are in great shape Brands: RCA, Westinghouse, GE, National, Raytheon and Honeywell-Amerex. Most look like they've never been used, a couple used but nothing extreme, next step is to test. I'm "AMPED" to say the least, also, I never find things like this. Found in a fertilizer plant in nowhere Oklahoma of all places. I can't wait to get home, haha!!
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Post by nmz on Oct 3, 2017 19:08:41 GMT -7
You lucky man!
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Post by purpletele on Oct 3, 2017 22:46:03 GMT -7
Oh how fun!!
That is a tone chasers dream!
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Post by zpilot on Oct 4, 2017 3:23:55 GMT -7
That is how it is done. The last find I had was when troubleshooting a church's sound system. They had a quad of RCA 6V6's setting in a cabinet. They had been there since the '70's when they installed a solid state amplifier. They gave them to me. I had a similar find at our municipal airport.
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Post by pcns on Oct 4, 2017 5:50:05 GMT -7
Its like the car collectors finding an rare old car in the back of someone's barn. Very cool!!
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Post by Papa Juan (lanier816) on Oct 4, 2017 15:15:33 GMT -7
That is how it is done. The last find I had was when troubleshooting a church's sound system. They had a quad of RCA 6V6's setting in a cabinet. They had been there since the '70's when they installed a solid state amplifier. They gave them to me. I had a similar find at our municipal airport. That's awesome, sometimes it's most unlikely of places. I may not be this lucky again but you better believe I'll have a sharp eye out for dusty cabinets in plants in the future.
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Post by Papa Juan (lanier816) on Oct 4, 2017 15:17:08 GMT -7
Its like the car collectors finding an rare old car in the back of someone's barn. Very cool!! Exactly.
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Post by zpilot on Oct 4, 2017 17:34:18 GMT -7
I recently mentioned on the forum (I forget where) that when I remarked about the tube era paging system behind my veterinarian's counter, which he no longer uses, that he gave me the NOS preamp tubes he had for it. I wonder how many small businesses still have those paging amps and extra tubes stashed somewhere?
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Post by z4me on Oct 10, 2017 21:47:18 GMT -7
Score! Very nice.
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Post by premiumplus (Dave) on Oct 13, 2017 13:53:13 GMT -7
I'm really happy for you! I had a similar experience when I went back to college at age 40. I got a job maintaining the electronics lab in the engineering department and at the end of the first year, one of the professors asked me to help clean out a closet. He said I could take whatever I wanted. I ended up with a brand new NOS Stancor A3801 output transformer (like Ken Fischer used in the Trainwreck Express), a very clean Dynaco Stereo 70 tube hi-fi amp, a couple of Tektronix oscilloscopes, a Simpson VOM, and some other stuff. It was a GREAT day. Love hearing stories like these. Then a couple of years later at the same University, I ended up with 4 Altec Voice of the Theater speakers when they remodeled the hockey arena. They were throwing them away! I sold them because I needed food for my young son but boy I wish I could have kept a pair of those. They were great speakers.
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Post by zpilot on Oct 13, 2017 14:37:46 GMT -7
Now THAT is a score.
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Post by Papa Juan (lanier816) on Oct 16, 2017 17:54:00 GMT -7
I'm really happy for you! I had a similar experience when I went back to college at age 40. I got a job maintaining the electronics lab in the engineering department and at the end of the first year, one of the professors asked me to help clean out a closet. He said I could take whatever I wanted. I ended up with a brand new NOS Stancor A3801 output transformer (like Ken Fischer used in the Trainwreck Express), a very clean Dynaco Stereo 70 tube hi-fi amp, a couple of Tektronix oscilloscopes, a Simpson VOM, and some other stuff. It was a GREAT day. Love hearing stories like these. Then a couple of years later at the same University, I ended up with 4 Altec Voice of the Theater speakers when they remodeled the hockey arena. They were throwing them away! I sold them because I needed food for my young son but boy I wish I could have kept a pair of those. They were great speakers. That’s awesome, did you ever do anything with the transformer?
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Post by premiumplus (Dave) on Oct 17, 2017 4:27:55 GMT -7
I tacked it into a test build of a Wreck express clone. Sounds really, really good...but it's way too loud for my purposes. I mean LOUD. It just sounds better and better as the dB's go up. They go for crazy money so I'll probably sell it at some point unless I come up with a great EL34 based build with a really good master volume.
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