Saw a CL ad the other day for a quad of NOS Tung Sol 5881's for 70 bucks. OK, I think, I don't need any 5881's at the moment, but that's a deal good enough to jump on.
I hook up with the guy, and he has one of those big boxes copier paper often ships in - overflowing with unused tubes in their original boxes.
So we negotiate a little, he shows me some other odds and ends, an unbuilt Heathkit SS stereo unit, some power supply kits, weird old coaxial 12" Utah speakers, etc. He was looking to get a few hundred bucks for the tubes, minimum, I got him down a little lower and threw in an old signal tracer converted into a guitar amp that I happened to have in my trunk, and we both walked away happy.
Normally these old tube lots just turn up a ton of used TV and radio tubes, with maybe one 12AX7, or a couple 6V6's and 5U4's buried in them, but not so this time, this collection actually had some useful, well-regarded full-on audio tubes. At last!
Here are some highlights:
TWO QUADS of NOS USA Tung Sol 5881's, NIB.
EIGHT RCA 6BQ5's, new in boxes.
4 NOS Tung Sol 12AX7's, new in boxed.
6 GE 12AY7's, new in boxes.
10 NIB 6AQ5's (including a quad of Tung's) - 6AQ5's are still cheap, but I love 'em!
And a bunch of slight oddballs - 5V4's and 5R4's (hard to get good data on exactly what the max filter cap spec is on these) a bunch of 6Y6's and 6080's, and a whole bunch of weird little noval and 7-pins, many of them sort of variants of 12AT7 sections, with only one triode, or diodes attached, etc., lots of 6U8's and 6AN8's, pentode/triodes...
Maybe I'm eccentric in my enthusiasm for Tung Sol, even before this score, I was rather enamored with them, they made some excellent, excellent, tubes, and they can be pretty hard to come by.
I keep feeling torn between having overpaid and underpaid, so I think it must have been a fair deal. In any case, I think it may be time to tackle that high-power Twin build i've been daydreaming about!
Odd thing is that almost all of these tubes were made in October, 1958. The original owner must have made a visit to the factory and just loaded up, the boxes are white, military looking deals, but prefixed with "JTL." Maybe the telephone equivalent of "JAN?" Dunno.
End-boast.
