[Milsurplus] Radio Collectors, Father Time and "Basket Cases"

[Ray Fantini]

Argument  (as in a point for debate, from a recent email exchange 
 concerning  values and dispositions of estate items):

  "There are  some good pieces, but most have been sadly mangled
    and  defaced. Collectors are becoming older- fewer in number    and  
 much more "picky" as time goes by.    Most, including me,  will no 
 longer "mess" with basket cases,    buying them  only as "parters" and 
 only then if dirt cheap.

True, no doubt there. Good thing that many experimenters, SWL , and Hams bought this stuff decades ago with the intent of doing things with it but never got around to it. That’s were your best examples of this stuff today are coming from. Couple years back recall talking with the people at out Fair Radio and they tell me they buy lots of estate stuff just for that reason.
As for not buying anything that’s been “mangled and defaced” That’s cool too, it’s your money and your choice. If your buying radios that can only be examples of what the radio was when in the limited time in military service that’s good, but as time goes by and you continue to just deal within a limited set of radios you will reach a point of where you have acquired everything or spend the majority of your time looking for that one or two elusive items.
I kind of imagine that aspect of the hobby like collecting only un-circulated coins, that way you have the perfect example of what it was like before being used.  
But this is a broad Hobby, and a broad base email reflector, and some of us also like operating and building vintage Ham radio equipment, adamantly my area of interest may be somewhat esoteric being surplus conversions of equipment and radios from the fifties and sixties but this is a broad platform and would assume there is room for all of us. 
Years ago, and I have been messing with this stuff being a SWL, Ham and engineer for over forty years now I saw a study stream of old WW2 and Korean surplus never being mainstream but always around and although the prices may have gone up but what is the same price today as it was back then but there is always stuff out there. With Ham fest, things like the Ham trader Yellow sheets or ads in the back of QST stuff was always there and today with Email reflectors, users groups, web pages and EBay I feel we are in the best of times for being a collector.
And for all of you that feel that they no longer have the desire to deal with basket cases that’s good for people like me who have fun buying and restoring that basket case radio to a operational state.
The process of learning how it works, how to get it working, gathering the parts and using it on the air are for me the fun, more then just the pleasure that owing one, although it may sometimes be cheaper to buy a project that’s already done I have often preferred to buy the basket case and do the work with the process being more for me then just owing the completed project, at least for me. That’s not taking anything away from the people who want to preserve or keep original examples but in many ways that’s what museums are for and my workshop and Ham shack may be many things but it’s not a museum.
The last ten years or so have been working with antique computer systems, Digital PDP-11 and the like and have to say that owing all the parts and all of that stuff has nothing on the thrill you get when you have one of those old systems up and running. Been documenting lots of this stuff over on You Tube and always surprised on the people interested and the comments posted regarding that sort of thing, but of all the videos I have posted on You Tube the most popular one is of BC-348 Ham Modifications that I have done that has over twenty thousand views, my TBW video is over ten thousand views with my most popular computer video only being over three thousand so if anything Military radio stuff is still beating that Hobby.

Link to my page over on YouTube if you want to take a look at totals and subjects:
http://www.youtube.com/user/rafantini8?feature=watch