Stop supporting these hacks
 

So this is to be to the point. Certain sellers on ebay are really trashing radios scrapping them out for parts. Certain sets NEVER HAVE the needed power supply with Amp tubes. Never going to buy from sellers.

Lots of radio history lost. It's bad enough seeing rare radio cabinets turned into goofy wine cabinets. Than these baboons try to sell this garbage when they don't want it.
Now there's people tearing out radios from cabinets for parts.how many parts sets does this specialty interest NEED!? Models of radios not existing anymore
Stop SUPPORTING these people---lots of radio history lost. Horrible...

I'm behind ya all the way. I don't buy from what I call "the breakers" who deliberately break and part out antique electronics as rule and won't encourage the practice. If you really know your electronics then you know what will fit and work from other sources be it transformers or tubes themselves. Years ago there were a number of these fools scrapping out Heathkit AA-50 and AA-100 amps for the output iron some commanding $100/ea plus another scoop of cash for the 7591's and 7199's. Today those amps are commanding over $500, the Dynaco's are even higher and I'm not referring to the fantasy land known as eBay.

I recently picked up a Drake TR-4 from a recent SK that was in bad shape. A heavy smoker who kept a large stash of older CB radios in his 1972 Winnebago Chieftain this one had been visited by a few mice. My first impulse was to look around on the e-pay site for the various parts but when I saw a chap selling numerous parts from a torn up TR-4C I thought better of it and restored the what I had.
A week later and another $100 in parts & misc I was making contacts into Germany on an untuned long wire running maybe 25 watts on 10M SSB. A week after this I picked up a far cleaner TR-4 for peanuts that needed far more help, again I resisted the temptation to troll around eBay or liberate them from my "ugly" TR-4 and visited AxMan surplus in St. Paul MN for the needed parts and all but the tube shields were NOS.

I also know that not every antique radio is going to stand the test of time and last forever. Transformers do short and burn up, the rare tubes do fail be it low emissions or sometimes it's a physical failure be it cracked lead seal, open heater or possibly heather/cathode or other internal short. Regardless of the failure I consider tubes to be just as valuable as anything else and my collecting goes back to the early 1980's when I'd pull whatever remaining tubes were in the discarded TV's behind the local shops. If I do end up with an unfortunate something that just can't be saved most everything is carefully removed and saved, more than once I've donated a part to another in need for nothing more than the cost of postage. The unfortunate reality is not everyone shares the same philosophy or appreciation and only values the money regardless of the destruction. My Elmer shared the gift of problem solving, I return the favor through appreciation.

Yes the problem is sometimes they dont tell you!!!!

Ya think your getting a beautiful stock radio and your actually getting crapola!!

Post wayyy overdue
 

Should of done post 20 years ago.
Many rare radios trashed.

Say a radio is worth 300 to 400 dollars restored.Someone selling part of set say , only RF section part of set should really only be worth 25 to 75$ tops..
I don't think putting too much spin on it. Salvage item and condition unknown. Not to mention shipping costs just to have salvage part delivered and then repairs needed.
Only reasonable offers will show sets are more valuable complete ..

Have you seen these ads on Ebay for magazine ads from an electronics magazine for $8.95? Unbelievable!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/32657384007...Bk9SR9qxv9PcZQ

The only thing most seem to care about anymore is the almighty dollar.

Two weeks back our town had a citywide garage sale and one prospective buyer spotted my motorcycle in the driveway, he inquired and was told that it wasn't for sale. Not a moment later he was banging on my door (I"m in the back apartment) and was asking what I'd take for it... sorry not for sale was met with increasing offers to buy it until I asked him to leave and closed the door.
I later found out he was a parts broker who buys up old bikes, mine isn't exactly a cherry of a machine, a 1981 Yamaha SECA XJ750R I bought from the previous owner who was going to "restore it" and instead got in over his head. I paid $1000 for six milk crates full of parts and set about putting the puzzle back together again. That was 9550 miles ago. To me it wasn't about the money. Sure I could have accepted his $4500 offer and found another one but that would have been nothing more than an appliance. The SECA was bought on the trust of the word given by the previous owner and that is worth more than gold.

My Drake TR4 is basically the same... both of them. The one came from a recent silent key who I got to know over the years. A retired Northwest Airlines A&P who liked to collect old CB radios. Most were 23 channel boxes from the 1970's but there were a few gems, the Drake TR4 was under a stack of base stations and covered in cigarette smoke filth. A pitiful site that I did a write-up on bringing it back to life on the Smokstak under the Amateur Radio section in a thread I call "On The Bench". I'm known as Pentode over there so go check out how the others and myself keep the old stuff alive.

So the point here is I really don't care about the money. I'm not known for selling the what I have, only making room for more.

Yup thats all it is :(









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Most everything I have is old. Top-load Sony U-Matic to a 1939 United Auto 3-band console radio that uses a #83 mercury vapor rectifier. My daily watch TV is a 1970 Magnavox Astro Sonic combo console that I've modified for composite video in and that's on a DTV converter box. I'm old school and set in my ways, no amount of cash is going to change that.

Would I be considered one of these evil people? I have collected old radios and stuff since the late 70s. I would go to yard sales,thrift stores and by any old electronics. Over the years I have a workshop full of stuff, 30x52 is the size of my main shop. With that said I plan to retire next year and do repairs at my own pace. I bought this stuff through the years as to help make money when I retire, back years ago I bought old tube cases for less than 5 bucks, buckets full of tubes for a few bucks,etc. So I want to clear some of the stuff out as its so full and I can barely walk through some areas.

A lot of what I have bought is parts, for example I have a lot of old radio chassis and other parts laying around. So I have dozens of old radio frames, no tubes on them,cases missing, all of this the way I found them. I knew they would have value to use for other repairs so I got them. So I have been thinking of setting up a site, put pictures and info of the items and selling parts I don't want. For example I have a late 20s Crosley metal radio case that is not complete. I could sell parts off of what is left to help others out and make a little. Another example is a early 1930s cabinet, I think Majestic that I have. If did not have any guts in. it only the case. I even offered it to a person who wanted it years ago and they have never got it. I had a few old TVs years ago I offered for free for over a year. Long story short the building it was stored in was being torn down for a road project and I had to give them to a scrapper as I had no room for them.

So my question would selling parts off incomplete items too far gone to restore be considered one of these sellers? Another question is what do you do with items you have to get rid of but no one wants them?

It always hurts my feelings to part out a set, but sometimes it just makes sense. At one time I had 4 or 5 tube Transoceanics, all in need of some TLC. I discovered they were worth more in parts. What made me feel better about the whole thing: almost no two items went to the same buyer. Maybe 15 or 20 Zeniths were made more complete, be it the replacement of a missing Wavemagnet or a broken rod antenna, or a more restorable chassis.

I look at it like this: not every radio can be saved, that's a fact so I grab what I can to save the others that do have a better than zero chance of survival.

Yes, sometimes one or more can serve as a helper for another continuing surviving. Of course, general radio/TCV/etc cannibalism (without any criteria) is bad...

I try not to part out stuff, but if something has 1 big league unobtainable part bad (CTC-16 flyback for example) and a bad cabinet or 2 major bad unobtainable and a good cabinet that's where I start to consider parting it out. Sets with less value, and or ones so wrecked that no sane person except Shango would consider restoration also tend to get parted....That GE 810 that's been in a barn so long the top rotted off is a parts set.

What I'm more likely to do is because of my backlog it's not uncommon for me to find more than one example of a set I want to restore.... When that happens both get dismantled, the best of both end up on the keeper set at the end of the restoration and the sum of the second class parts get thrown together into a cheap project or parts set for someone else to enjoy.

My biggest irritation are those who intentionally gut a set just to sell the parts by the piece with the belief they're worth more than whole.

There's a guy on Ebay selling parts out of a Tektronix 1910. If you're unfamiliar with the 1910, it's a VITS inserter and test generator for NTSC. They sold for about $12K when new. Anyway, he's selling a digital board for $92. BUT, there's another listing just above it, for the WHOLE generator for $100. Basically the 1910 is totally junk as there are no NTSC stations on the air anymore. The only market for these is guys like us who are looking for a fancy NTSC test generator. And they're most likely will need a capacitor overhaul since these were 24 hour operated devices. SO, what planet do you think this guy is from?

Let me check my hitchhikers guide to the galaxy.