I was at an open sale event of the Northwest Vintage Radio Society ( NWVRS ) in Aurora Oregon, up near Portland, about a month ago. One club member had his usual about 4 tables full of boxes of tubes, in trays of boxes by voltage, 3, 6
12 and so on. I didn't buy any, as i have way too many stored already. The price on these tubes was $2 each, but you were assuredly not going to find any 101F 6V6 6L6 12AX7 2E22 and so on, or any tube in demand by audio enthusiasts. High value tubes had been
culled out. So at the end of the swapmeet, guess what ? All the tubes were FREE ! Take what you want ! I got 2 or 3 trays myself. Pure feeding frenzy, i suppose. Not all boxes were taken, even for free. I asked one of the seller's helpers what gives, as i
really didn't understand. He said that vac tubes were now in oversupply. Tubes had come out of closets warehouses and storage everywhere. He gave me some example if a common tube whose sellable price now was 1/2 what it was a couple years ago. Real interesting,
i think. Also of course the tubes in working equipment are getting a whole lot less exercise nowadays than back in their heyday, so diminished consumption of replacements.
Yesterday i was talking to a friend about the German DKE38 Peoples' Radio and that i would like to get a VCL11 tube so i could get it working and $ell it. You would think this valve would have been made in the millions. Or maybe the high
heater voltage made them short - lived. The only NIB one i saw online was EU 90. That's too much for me for some stupid triode + pentode. I spent some time looking for US approximate replacements but the US 1D8 and such with similar heater current have the
tube sections designed for use opposite of the German design; that is, the US tubes have the triode, not the pentode, as the audio output. Ordinary tubes, the values are stagnant, but the few in high demand or very low supply, those are worth $$$.