[Milsurplus] Good as gold?

[Hue Miller]

I saw on Epay a WW2 era "spy walkie talkie"  "S-phone" close for some $9,500+.

I thought this would be an interesting item to try to get working and analyze, 

but the tab would take a serious bite out of my hobby money for x years.

 

If you want a look, 

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/WW2-S-Phone-Type-13-MK-IV-/130979554217?_trksid=p2047675.l2557&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEWAX%3AIT&nma=true&si=jYvmqlCsrajQ1xeseJHbFugXAqU%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc#ht_673wt_1255

 

If this link gets broken up, you can look in completed auctions for the item number in the above, or its

title

 


WW2 S Phone Type 13 MK IV.
 
This is a vhf walkie talkie that agents on the ground used to communicate with a circling aircraft.
As it was vhf and short range, the enemy, the German occupying force, could not monitor - intercept
the communications.
 
So, the S-word is a big exciter. I mean of course, "spy".  "Some" radios are worth near gold.
 
Meanwhile, in another category of high value, i have noticed that battery boxes for some German radios,
namely, a 4-tube field radio regen receiver, Torn.E.b. and a 3-tube walkie talkie, Kl.Fu.d., actually bring prices
higher than the radio. That's right, a box with space for batteries, has a higher price than the box with the
actual radio.  I have seen a rusty ! battery box for the Torn. receiver go for hundreds of dollars more than
the radio itself. Apparently souvenir hunters disposed of the battery boxes along the line, or never grabbed
the battery box in the first place ( the intial looting ) because it didn't seem very useful and just ate up 
limited space. What kind of money: i hear the batt box for the Torn. receiver is worth about $1000. You read 
that right.
 
Meanwhile, i haven't seen that other radio categories have escalated that much. A year back i was surprised
when a Grebe CR-18, maybe the first shortwave receiver, or one of the very first, failed to bring its expected
price of around $2000, which is actually not exhorbitant for what those go for. The seller finally "parted it out":
sold it and each plug in coil separately, which is kind of sad.
-Hue