[Hallicrafters] More great finds and some thoughts

[Rich Oliver]

I have had three great finds.  Most recently I came across a yard sale 
that included a pile of ham gear - a Swan 350 with power supply and 
microphone, plus an AEA Morse Machine, iambic paddle, phone patch, 
modem, power meter and a couple of other odd pieces.  The only price tag 
I could find said $20 so I asked which piece was $20 and what did they 
want for the rest?  It turns out they wanted $20 for all of it.  I told 
them it was worth more and they said they knew that, but preferred to 
get it to some ham who would use it at a really sweet price.  I did not 
argue with them.

The second great find involves four HRO's for $10 each plus a pile of 
other gear at comparable prices, and a Swan 500 with PS thrown in as a 
freebie for good measure.

The third deal was the best but it might induce heart attacks so I won't 
go there.  :-)

Keep looking - great deals are out there!

Now, on the topic of organizing gear so that my XYL can get decent value 
at my estate sale, I agree that it merits some preparation.  I have 
attended many estate sales and have never seen one that was very well 
organized.  The radios always seem to hit the block "bare", by which I 
mean without any documentation, accessories, power supplies, manuals, or 
loose parts.  If they are really savvy the power supply might be sold 
together with the rig.  Even at the most organized estate sale I have 
ever attended (W7TB's) I bought an RCA ACR-175 for a song, then found 
myself in a bidding war over the cabinet which happened to be loose in 
another room so hit the block separately.  Turns out the other guy 
thought it would fit his bare ACR-136.  It wouldn't.

Only a couple of times have I had a manual come with a rig from an 
estate; they mostly get tossed.  I started a card file with a card for 
each rig with info on what else goes with it and where to find it, plus 
what I know of its history and previous owners.  That fizzled - I just 
don't invest the effort to keep it up to date and think it might be too 
much for the XYL to handle under stress anyway.  My current thinking is 
that the way to go is a label stuck on the bottom or rear of the rig 
with info on where to find the manual and what other pieces go with it. 
  Other info on history and value can go in the file folder.

BTW those $10 HRO's came with one coil each.  I talked to the guy who 
packed up the stuff for the estate and asked him about coils.  He 
obviously had no idea what I was talking about so I popped the coil set 
out of one of the HRO's to show him.  His face lit up and he said "oh 
yeah, there were boxes and boxes full of those things.  I thought they 
were some kind of surplus junk so I tossed them."  That happened about a 
week before I came into the picture so they were truly gone.  A reward 
offer with a picture posted at the town dump failed to retrieve them, 
and I'll never know if the fellow had manuals.

In closing, I agree that we should be respectful to those left behind 
but I must tell a story.  Back in Indiana a collector friend was 
saddened by the death of a real OT about 30 years ago.  The fellow had 
been active since WWI and still had much of his spark gear and other 
stuff from the old days.  My friend delayed contacting the family until 
what he considered a respectful period of time had passed.  When he did 
finally contact them he was told that it had all gone in the trash the 
day before.  :-(

73, Rich, KC9GQ