some tesla el34s (rare or not?)

[Amberden]

so i found these tubes on e-bay.

they are just the el34s tesla made with double O getters with blue or red glass.

the ones on e-bay are really expensive and are like 4 notches away from testing bad lol so not too interested in them.

i heard that tesla made blue glass el34s and red glass el34s both have the same guts as the OO getter tubes but the color glass is pretty cool.

so how rare are we talking, seeing as i know where to look and can't find any probably pretty hard to find but anyone know just how rare?

[dynaman]

Same as the clear glass versions from their respective eras. Mix and match for "Purple Haze" tone.

[David Root]

Be careful here, there are a lot of fakes around! If it looks too good to be true, you can bet your butt it is!

Look on the web, just google fake Tesla EL34. If the seller is in Hong Kong, forget it, they're very likely Chinese fakes.

[dynaman]

Be careful here, there are a lot of fakes around! If it looks too good to be true, you can bet your butt it is!

Look on the web, just google fake Tesla EL34. If the seller is in Hong Kong, forget it, they're very likely Chinese fakes.

Really? I never thought of Tesla's as being worth enough to counterfeit. I've owned plenty of them and they were just fine, but I quit buying them when used pieces started costing more than new Russian stuff. Huh.

[dreric]

Telsa............. became JJ who still offers EL34s in "sky blue glass". Not saying it's exactly the same innards and the ones I have aren't nearly as blue. These look a little funky to me.

Eric

[ToneMerc]

These are just 90's tubes, nothing out of the ordinary for Tesla during that timeframe other than the color of the glass. They look different because the facility that made those tubes closed down and JJ couldn't get the exact same styled inards.

Way back then I ran the same tube only in clear glass after I had a Chinese EL34 take out the OT in my TGA-3, got a good scolding from James over that one.

TM

[dynaman]

Telsa............. became JJ who still offers EL34s in "sky blue glass". Not saying it's exactly the same innards and the ones I have aren't nearly as blue. These look a little funky to me.

Eric

Nah, that dark shade of blue is right for the pre-JJ stuff, as is the red. Also, the shapes of the glass envelopes are the same as what I owned. Like those in the pics, my red tubes had the same rounded-off tops like newer JJs and my blue tubes had slightly flatter tops like classic vintage Tesla. Hell, the tubes in the pics might be the same quads I sold years ago.

Still can't tell if they're real without seeing the plates and rings.

Regardless, their color is nothing but marketing and I wouldn't pay any more for these than I would for regular Teslas. Then again, some folks REALLY REALLY dig blue and red. Personally, I like having the ability to see when a tube is redplating.

I'm surprised to hear that such an obscure tube is being faked....it's not like they're regarded as being sonically special. But it does happen. I got burned on a pair of Philips/Miniwatt "SQ" 7308s years ago - I could barely scratch their fresh silkscreening off with a razor blade.

[Amberden]

both the red and the blues are real 100% true OO getter tesla tubes. this post wasn't about the tubes themselves but how rare are the real ones, i mean what could i expect to pay for NOS ones like this?

[ToneMerc]

both the red and the blues are real 100% true OO getter tesla tubes. this post wasn't about the tubes themselves but how rare are the real ones, i mean what could i expect to pay for NOS ones like this?

The tubes themselves were ok, what makes these different is the color of the glass, which is only eye candy. Maybe you could say that they are rare because you don't see the colored glass models everyday. However, that doesn't automatically make them valuable.

IMHO, it's an just ok 90's funky colored tube that might be new. In 2011 it's still only worth 90's prices in my book, not everything NOS is gold.

TM

[Amberden]

so these were made in the 90s ???

if so why they so hard to find?

if they are cheap all the better.

[dynaman]

http://cgi.ebay.com/4Pcs-Old-Tesla-NOS- ... 43a60a7e8a

That's f***ing stupid $$ for regular Teslas.

They're only worth what you're willing to pay. I'd give about $40 MAX for them if I ran across them at a garage sale. I would promptly auction them on Ebay.

No offense if the seller of the cited Ebay auction is a member.

[Amberden]

yea that guy has a bunch of tubes for sale on e-bay and all at like 5-10x the going rate. and he's in Taiwan, so I'm not really sure if its to be trusted.

I had a bad experience recently with some fake transistors

i have a trans-tube peavey head (sounds pretty great actually)

got some transistors from taiwan, sound way different so i cut them open

pic 001 is what i should have seen, pic 002 is what i did find

the big blue glass ones are so counterfeited now i haven't a clue if the real ones even get made anymore.

so yea, i don't go for things that come from counterfeit countries anymore.

[David Root]

I've heard about solid state fakes too, but that's the first one I've actually seen pix of. The reason I brought this up was I had just read this column on fake tubes, the Hall of Shame.

http://www.jacmusic.com/JJ/803S/-fake/index.htm

Also this broader one,

http://www.jacmusic.com/nos/images/Fakes/index/htm

[Structo]

Those are cool looking tubes.
I had no idea they ever made those.

Nowadays kids put blue LED's under the tubes for a custom look.

Counterfeit semiconductors.

Who would have thought that would ever happen?
Unreal.

Makes me wonder, I had a old Ampeg solid state head that had the old TO-3 power transistors.
I replaced them all and it never worked right.
Most likely it was the repairman's fault but now I wonder.

[dreric]

WOW!

Counterfeit transistors. I don't know enough about the value of these things to understand the profit motive for doing this. Did they work within the circuit yet just sound different? Were you told that they were made of the same materials as your originals?

There have been a lot of exposures of fake caps. Not ignoring the deception the biggest issue has been safety because the fake caps haven't had the same values as the label.

Who knew?

BTW, new decent sounding EL34s from reputable dealers are abundant. Unless it's rare or odd and I'm willing to take a chance I don't buy tubes on ebay.

Eric