Darcell Tubes Warehouse End Of The Line 2015

[Homer J Simpson]

[calexanian]

Why is it that everybody who makes this sort of video has no real idea what they are looking at?

I have been in many places like that. Mostly picked over junk people want way too much for. I was not seeing $34,000 in value there. Mostly television series tubes and Industrial tubes. All of those mercury ignitrons are considered toxic waste and the amount of PCB's in that place are probably off he scale in the old caps. It is actually a serious business cleaning up a place like that. I am actually in the preliminary stages of planing an electronics site cleanup now and as far as value in vintage tubes and gear goes makes this place look about as good as a roller skate with three wheels.

BTW if anybody wants a vintage 300 or 500 series Tek scope, on cart and everything. Kept in a clean environment, but not used in 30 years let me know. We will have about 15 of them available in the near future. Also if anybody wants a welch style vacuum pump guaranteed to not be from a fab and not have any toxic things pumped through them let me know. Also small diffusion pumps and the like, just let me know. 

[Cyberdragon]

I have been in many places like that. Mostly picked over junk people want way too much for. I was not seeing $34,000 in value there. Mostly television series tubes and Industrial tubes. All of those mercury ignitrons are considered toxic waste and the amount of PCB's in that place are probably off he scale in the old caps. It is actually a serious business cleaning up a place like that. I am actually in the preliminary stages of planing an electronics site cleanup now and as far as value in vintage tubes and gear goes makes this place look about as good as a roller skate with three wheels.

The problem with stuff like this is just the price, I'm sure there are enough people out there that would want this kind of junk, but only if it's cheap enough. At our radio club we sell boxes of this kind of junk for a dollar to a few dollars each.

[calexanian]

Agreed. I used to sell at ham swaps and such. Most of the fun was in the haggling over a dollar and telling stories and BS ing. Whenever somebody thought they really had something of great value all the fun would get sucked right out of the conversation.

[Cubdriver]

Why is it that everybody who makes this sort of video has no real idea what they are looking at?

I have been in many places like that. Mostly picked over junk people want way too much for. I was not seeing $34,000 in value there. Mostly television series tubes and Industrial tubes. All of those mercury ignitrons are considered toxic waste and the amount of PCB's in that place are probably off he scale in the old caps. It is actually a serious business cleaning up a place like that. I am actually in the preliminary stages of planing an electronics site cleanup now and as far as value in vintage tubes and gear goes makes this place look about as good as a roller skate with three wheels.

BTW if anybody wants a vintage 300 or 500 series Tek scope, on cart and everything. Kept in a clean environment, but not used in 30 years let me know. We will have about 15 of them available in the near future. Also if anybody wants a welch style vacuum pump guaranteed to not be from a fab and not have any toxic things pumped through them let me know. Also small diffusion pumps and the like, just let me know.

Where are you?  The issue of course is that packing and shipping that sort of stuff is $$.

-Pat

[CatalinaWOW]

With a little appropriate marketing there is a mint to be made here.  Out of all of those TV tubes there are bound to a couple of hundred which are functionally similar (dual triodes, or triode pentodes) or some similar combination.

You design up a nice walnut cased preamplifier with gold plated input and output jacks and write an article extolling the perfection of each of these tube types for a particular class of music.  You know, 12xyz is perfect for 50s rock while 12abc brings out the concert hall for orchestral performances.  You could even extend that to the power supply section.  35W4 for easy listening, something else for heavy metal.

Then price them at the low end of audiophool range and sit back and watch the money flow in.

[calexanian]

A little update

Its a little overwhelming in scope. My friends father was something of a pack rat. I identified about a dozen TEK 535 and 535A, 533 and 533A, 545A, and a 531A scopes. Additionally several other boat anchors as well. All with carts and many plug ins. Next trip down I will bring one up slow on a variac and see if the caps are good. They have all been kept in a lab environment so all that would most likely be wrong is the caps, but my guess is they will come up. As for vacuum equipment there is so much it would take a week solid just to catalog it all. I found two whole genuine sealex machines and there are several Eisler sealers. Additionally there are 6 litton lathes, however those all have an active market sell for many thousands of dollars each regularly. There is one single evacuation system for x ray tubes that had 10 or 12 positions, each with a consolidated vacuum 2 inch diffusion pump and a welch 1400 and associated valves and even a little back out oven over each one that is on pneumatic lifters. I am going to do an in depth look at that system. there are also 10 various evacuation stations for small tubes, each that does 4 or 6 at a time. Most of them are still functional. Also there are 3 manual stations for exhausting large tubes 2 or 4 at a time. All 3 work as well. Those are the ones that I have been maintaining over the last decade or so. There are about a half dozen vacuum firing setups around the place as well.