Foreign tube radios/HiFis

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The sellers are asking big bucks for radios that don't even work! I saw one radio that was listed on Ebay today and the seller said they plugged it in and didn't hear anything. The photos revealed that the tubes were missing!

I think I am going back to the radio club here in town. At each meeting they have a swap meet & buy & sell. They have radios there for cheap. A lot of those guys see these radios at garage sales & estate sales and buy them for just a few bucks just to save them like members here save washers & dryers. A lot of them get rid of them with the "i've had it for quite a few years, but never got around to it and the wife wants me to unload some of this "junk" as she calls it".

Here is a link to a seller that seems to specialize in old radios and is trying to charge a premium price for non working radios. He seems to be flooding Ebay with them. This radio for example MAY go for his asking price IF it was working properly. But it is not. Maybe I should just be thankful that they aren't calling these old radios "Eames Era"!

[this post was last edited: 11/26/2011-19:57]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-195...145?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item53e69e2011
 
As an eBay Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
prices

Hehe,those prices are a little optimistic LOL-i recon that beat up,non-working
'56 zenith 5-tube would sell for about $5-10 at a rummage sale in that condition.
Most i have payed for a vintage radio is $200 for a 1925 atwater-kent complete
with the speaker and a 1942 vintage power converter to take place of the batteries
normally used to power the set.
A few i have had given to me or grabbed at the dump(!)Most recent dump grab, about
4 years ago,was a 1928 RCA radiola!! speaker and a couple tubes are missing,but
it's fixable-makes me wonder what ended up in the landfill when i wasn't there
to rescue this stuff!...
BTW,IIRC,the 1928 radiola was the first plug in radio.
 
There are radios like the one you acquired that are historic pieces and are worth that much. But some of these people who advertise their radio as "rare" fail to notice that there are 10 more just like it listed at the same time!
I paid about $175.00 for that huge Saba I have, but that includes shipping all the way from Germany and it works perfectly. I felt it was a worthwhile value.

So, just what is the market for vintage 40's-60's radios? How big is the market?
Just what are people willing to pay for a restored radio?

And secondly when you watch shows like Antiques Roadshow they always tell you to leave the item in it's original state rather than to restore it. Sometimes restoring it reduces the value significantly. Does this apply to radios too?
 
I don't watch ANTIQUES ROADSHOW, but I think saying "never restore" seems a little extreme. I suppose unrestored more desirable--but restoration of some sort might be necessary to make an item usable. Even usable for display only. At that point, restoration is of more value--to my mind, at least--than than no restoration.

With radios, it's not unreasonable for someone to want the radio to actually work. I know, in fact, one person who bought a couple of radios for her home. She insisted that the radio HAD to work. I pointed out that even non-working it could look nice sitting on a shelf, but she wasn't buying that argument. (In my case, I guess I think it's nice if something like that works. But given how little I use a radio, it's not critical. Plus I have lots of stuff on display that either doesn't work, or else may work but is never used. I probably have the only living room in America with Sunbeam percolator on display as decorative item.) In any case, current feeling is that to make the radio work reliably, one needs to do things like a full recapping with modern parts. Of course, those new parts can be hidden. While the radio might not function exactly as it did new (due to variances in capacitor type and value--although this getting a little too audiophile for an old radio!)--it will function more reliably in today's world, and will look like original. At least as long as one doesn't pull the chassis out.

With radios, people use interesting tricks to keep it seeming like its original. Power supply capacitors about the chassis may be left in place, and quietly replaced with new, smaller units under the chassis. One also hears of people who carefully disassemble the wax and paper capacitors, and install new capacitors inside the old paper case so they have something new that looks original.

The bigger problem with "restoration" is when it's more than restoring. Like gutting a radio, and installing the guts from a modern radio. This may, of course, in some cases, be appropriate IF the original radio electronics are totally gone past the point of any hope of restoration. Unfortunately, there are still people out there who gut things that are in great condition. I have looked at Etsy.com, and cringe when I see people taking vintage items that appear to have been in good condition, and then used them for arts and crafts time.
 
"big cabinet radios and HiFis usually languish for weeks in local shops and sell for $5-20! They are just too big and dated for most people i guess..."

Later consoles tend to be a hard sell here. But what really surprises me is that when a console radio shows up in a thrift shop it does sell--and usually for a lot more than $5.

The most extreme case was a 30s Philco that went through one Goodwill. It had problems. The manager had some old coot buddy take a look, and say, "Oh! It just needs a tube!" Yeah, right. I took one look, and could see where there might be a missing tube. There was also a missing tube socket in that location. Or else it was some other component. The tuning dial string was missing. Who knows what else was wrong electronically? Then the cabinet's finish needed work. Price? At least $80. Maybe more than $100. And it sold within a week or two. I'm still amazed ten years later.
 
That's an interesting take on restoration.

I've read about people who repack the caps & resistors before. I think that if you intend on selling a restored radio to a collector who appreciates such things that's fine. But how many people are going to take the radio apart and look under the chassis? I leave the metal cased multi caps in place and just disconnect them and put the new caps under the chassis. Looks like the original but isn't. And with the new caps the radio will be more reliable and last longer any way.

I like for everything I have to work. For me, having a radio that can't be used would bother me.
 
I have a lot of rare but not valuable items, radio and small televisions. I understand the concept of saving, even if they're not big buck items. One of my prizes is a table-wall-consolette type stereo system with a black and white tv. Considering how often they don't appear here, I grabbed it for $60. TV lights up, amp on the stereo works, record changer works, but won't track, with likely its original pickup and stylus. I didn't freak when it didn't function correctly, and yes it's going to need attention when I get it set out again. Tuner doesn't work either. If I decided to sell now in its current shape, I'd let it go for what I paid. I don't think I have a darn thing in this house worth big money, but it is worth the world to me.

Wowsers!!!! Lookit this 1940s telebision! Still works!! I wrote them a note saying it was made between 1960 and 1965, but they would know better than any of us, after all, they are big time estate handlers.

112561++11-27-2011-05-49-53.jpg
 
As for estate agents, "We're here to SELL the stuff, not GIVE it away!". Most of them keep a percentage of the proceeds of the sale. They'll tell you ANYTHING to get you to buy and raise the sales total!

The same thing is pretty true about most Ebay sellers.

Emotional value on something is hard to price. You can't really. I think that's why Ebay is so popular. Because people who either had something before or always wanted one and couldn't obtain it earlier get a chance to have the item of their dreams.
 
ebay as radio source

i have got about half of my foreign tube radios on Ebay as well as all of my
transistor russian ones except for one bought from"fair radio sales"Found my '76
communist chinese army radio on ebay too.When i got the russian HiFi from moldova,
i was the only bidder and got it for something like $10,but shipping cost me
around $200-sender packed it well and there was only very slight damage incurred
in it's long rough trip through the mail system...
When i can post up some pics,i'll make a thread on all my russian radios and
equipment and 1987 lada car parts-canadians had these russki cars for sale up there
from 1979-1998.
 
lada

found a lada at a local junkyard!-got it and thought about fixing it up,but was
told the engine was bad and it had rusted out rockers as well as a broken
windshield,so i ended up stripping it and junking it only to discover the engine
was good after all-just had a bad intake manifold gasket,letting coolant get into
an inlet port and short the plug...Car,a 1987 lada"signet 1500"is basicly a russian
made fiat 124 updated and modified for russian conditions,i probably could have
used fiat sheetmetal patches to fix the rust...For the ovehead cam 4cyl engine
that powers the car,i have heard it was a fiat-influenced russian design and have
also heard it was a"stillborn"fiat design the russians took over.Fiat helped set
up the factory which opened in 1970.Since i had all the parts from the lada,i
thought about using them to make a lotus 7 replica type homebuilt car,but decided
it would take years to complete with all my other projects going on so i sold the
5-speed transmission to a lada enthusiust in illinois so he could upgrade his '76
4 speed lada to 5 speed.
If i could have/would have fixed up this little russian car,it would have been the
key item in my russian collection!!LOL.I might still end up with one someday.
The "niva"4x4 lada is pretty well known there in canada and was one of lada's big
sellers up there-especially in the mid-'90s
If anyone has any questions about lada cars,ask away!
 
Update

I got some of the tuner control cleaner and..wow! Worked like a charm.  It's like I have a new 55 year old radio! 
smiley-smile.gif


 

aw.org people are the best people on the internet!

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
Great! You will enjoy listening to it.
Just watch and see if it starts to develop a hum in the sound while playing. That's a sign that the filter capacitors are dying on you. If they go completely it could damage the transformer in the radio. Those transformers are expensive and hard to come by. To fix it, you'll need to replace the electrolytic caps and the filter caps. Then your radio will easily last another 50 years. The caps of today are much more reliable than the paper & was caps of the time when your radio was built. If your radio does start to hum, just turn it off and don't use it until you get the caps replaced. Fortunately, new caps are cheap too.
In the mean time, happy listening! [this post was last edited: 11/28/2011-21:49]
 
But they are not all capacitors. Some are resistors. And the little ceramic disk capacitors do not need replacing. They usually last forever. So that should cut down the amount you have to replace. It's only the paper & wax caps that need replacing.
Plus, you have time. If the radio isn't humming you can still use it in the meantime. It may be years before it starts to hum.
 
bad capacitors

i have a few of my old tube radios still running the original filter caps-on the
other hand i had to "recap"the 2004 computer i'm using to type this about 4 years
ago lol.
Capacitors i have had to replace in my electronics:
'39"western" radio-filter cap was failed open when i got radio,'61 dated GE was
very "gassy"-pretty blue nitrogen haze...5Y3...
'62 stromberg carlson AM/FM tuner-filter cap failed open while i was listening to
it-knew what the problem was the second i saw the "eye"tube display...
'81 RCA color TV-filter cap failed open-this gave a very strange picture with the
set running on undervoltage pulsating DC!!
'58 ducretet thomson. were suspected of being "leaky"likely were "dry" too
'04 taiwanese computer-computer would"lock up"almost every time hard drive
shifted heads-caps apparently got "leakey",heated up,boiled off electrolite,
failed open..new capacitors fixed the problem.
I have some other equipment that i know has bad capacitors,but i haven't got
to that stuff yet('37 zenith radio,'57 hotpoint Tv just to name a couple:)
 
As long as we are talking about recapping, I am working on recapping my AR-3a speakers. I researched the age and they were built in APril of 1968. I've had them for about 10 years and they still sound good. It has REALLY old caps in it and I need to replace them. A lot of people say that when you recap them they sound a lot better as the original paper/wax caps drift their values over the years. Yes, that big ivory colored thing is a 5mFD cap!

Here is the inside of one of the speakers:

whirlcool++12-4-2011-11-56-26.jpg
 
weird capacitors

never seen any caps like those! What capacitors do you plan on using as
replacements-some like to use special "hi fi"capacitors for crossovers-metal foil
instead of cheaper metalized polyester,etc.In the '90s i used to get "special"
crossover caps from"parts express"french made "solen"was one (also used to buy
speaker drivers from "parts express"in the '90s;eminence,morel,audax,dynaudio.
 
Yeah, that multicap looks more like a transformer, doesn't it?

I am going to use Solen's too. On a couple of AR related websites I inadvertently started a mini war over what caps to use. Some people are of the "a cap is a cap is a cap" opinion say to use the cheapest caps you can find, and others are of the polypropylene school. The caps that I have in there now will be removed and normal caps will be used. Instead of using a multicap I am going to use separate caps. It'll cost be about $60.00 per speaker to recap them and I will only have to double up the 6.0uF cap with two 3.0uf caps in parallel. I can get exact 50uF and 150uF caps from Solen. The caps from Solen are polypropylene caps.

I've ordered a LCR meter to use. Before I remove these caps I want to see how far they have drifted since 1968 and the check the new caps for tolerance. Supposedly these old caps had a 20% tolerance and the new ones a 5% tolerance. One guy said that these old caps are industrial strength caps and they may still hold their original values.

Other cap brand choices I had were Dayton, Parts Express housebrand, and Jentzen. I went with the Solen's as that is what most people are using.
 
"HiFi" crossover caps

Hehe,suprized there is even any argument over using top quality crossover caps on
those AR sites LOL-cost for the premium capacitors is pretty low considering how
long they will last and the possible effect they could have on the sound.
I used solen and german"ERO"and"Frako"caps when i set up the crossovers for my
porsche car stereo setup.For my camaro z28 system i used TRW and sprague capacitors
-both setups,one as german as possible,the other as U.S. as possible sound
awesome including nice clean and accurate highs.
 
At Vacuum Tube Valley magazine we ran extensive double blind randomized tests on various pricey "boutique" and more regularly available caps to be used for restoring tube audio equipment, and the results led many of us to recommend Illinois MWR metallized polystyrene caps for applications where the original type sound quality is desired. Some of the fancy-schmancy high end caps resulted in a brighter and/or more clinical sound not typical of the original units and many of the most knowledgeable Hi-Fi collectors in the country use Illinois exclusively in their restorations when replacing axial lead caps in bias, filter supplies cathode circuits and for decoupling. The fact that they are cheap is just a bonus, the expensive jobs would have been preferred had they actually proven superior for the application.
 
Guitarists argue about caps too-on what to use for recapping their amps.for speakers--NEVER have had to recap them unless the speaker system was somehow abused.If the caps in their crossovers are non electrolytic-probably won't have to worry about them.Guitar amps and Hi-Fi are the most major markets for tubes and such today.At radio stations--it sure clears up the sound of many AM transmitters when you replace the blocking caps in the audio stages feeding the modulator--and the modulator blocker caps-honestly--sound like you got a NEW transmitter!and for less cost.These are oil filled paper or film caps becuase of the very high voltages.and replace the caps on the transmitters feedback ladders.that helps,too.The Feedback ladder is in the modulator it generates an inverse feedback to the first audio stage in the modulator-in effort to reduce distortion and make the stage have a wide frequency reponse-consists of high value-1meg ohmand 30 of them going to the plates of the mod tubes to thru the resistors to a cap and more resistors to ground-atap from the cap goes to the mod input stage cathode and grid.Its amazing how the transmitter cleans up when you rebuild the feedback ladders.For those new tubes sure help,too.
 

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