[Milsurplus] "Oldtimer bitching"? Or Timely Warning? You Decide.

[Hubert Miller]

Many times things go home with the hamfest would-be seller because the thing is priced as a scarce “collectible” when it really isn’t.

The Drake gear that didn’t sell, what was it priced at? There were a lot of Drake 4-line radios built. They are not really ‘collectibles’ 

and should be priced more like a tool. And hamfests are generally not the best venue for selling high-end collectibles anyway; most

people there are looking for a deal. Prices are also down from the era of  the ‘irrational exuberance’ economy of a few years ago. 
Remember that? Everything just had to keep going up, up, up. 

The concern in recent, and in fact, current times, is price deflation, not inflation. 

I was at an antique radio swap in Portland, Oregon around January this year. I had a couple Zenith Trans-Oceanics and a 1930s

“cathedral”. There were maybe 35 Zenith T.O.s for sale and plenty of roundtops. I read that Zenith T.O. production was something

like 100,000. That’s a lot and that means they will never be “scarce” or “rare”. 

 

A lot of radio electronics has already gone the way of the landfill. Think of all those WRLs, Harvey-Wells, and Hallicrafters that AREN’T

out there. Sure there seems to be enough now, but not nearly the original count, i wager. 
No one at present collects boat radios – no, wait – that one gallery on Angelfire something – and i’m sure i have the only existing 

examples of some models – but the value is still nil. Still stuck in the value nadir.                         

 

I for one like to see discussion like this on the groups, no matter what you want to call the thread.

-H M 

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