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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.
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