[R-390] More Bad News

[antipode]

A couple of days ago I stopped by a seemingly uninteresting garage sale on
my way home from work.  I left work early on Wednesday afternoon to take
care of some personal business when I happened across the sale on a back
street shortcut I sometimes take when the traffic is heavy.  As I drove by
the place I remembered I had seen a tower with a beam behind this same house
a few years earlier, but it had been taken down.  I never really knew the
ham who lived there as he primarily was an experimenter from what I had
heard.  As soon as I saw the garage sale sign, I decided to stop since I
thought there may be some ham goodies if the guy still lived there.  Sure
enough when I walked into the garage there were several pieces of old gear
lying around on some of the tables including an old beat up Hallicrafters
SX-99 and an old Ham-M rotator and control box.  There was an elderly woman
running the sale who introduced herself and explained that all this had been
her husband's, but he had died about a month earlier due to poor health and
now she was disposing of all his old radio equipment.  She said the sale was
very slow that afternoon as it was a weekday and she expected this upcoming
Saturday to be the day when all this stuff would be sold.

After chit-chatting with her for a few minutes I looked around a bit more
carefully and noticed a couple of Collins manuals near some old newspapers.
One of the manuals was for a KW-1 and the other for a 51J-4.  Being a
Collins collector myself, my interest was immediately piqued.  I inquired
about the equipment which these manuals were for, and she said that
equipment was way too heavy for her to move out into the garage so she had
just left it in the house in her husband's study.  She took me into his
"shack" and sure enough there it was.  The KW-1 was apparently used on CW
only as I didn't see a mic but only an old bug on his operating desk.  Also
on the desk was what looked like a pristine 51J-4 in its original cabinet.
When I inquired about buying the KW-1 and 51J-4 she said it was probably
worth a lot of money but had no idea of its value.  Before I could come up
with a reasonable offer, she volunteered that she would sell both pieces to
me for $350.00 provided I would move it out by this Sunday.  Needless to say
I nearly had a heart attack on the spot!  Without showing too much
excitement, I casually accepted the offer and promised I'd be back today
(Friday) as that would give me ample time to arrange a truck and a friend to
help me load the gear.  My heart was about ready to explode!  I had just
made the deal of the century!

I took off work today to pick up my spectacular find, rented a good sized
truck, and arranged for my buddy, who works only until 12 noon on Fridays,
to help me move the gear out of the house and into the truck.  I picked him
up and we zoomed over to the house.  When we arrived there was another car
parked in the driveway and I had to park the truck on the street.  Going up
to the front door to ask the woman if she could have the owner of the car
move it so I could get the truck as close as possible for loading, a rather
young man met me and asked what I wanted.  When I told him about the deal he
laughed and said that the old radios his mother had arranged to sell me
weren't worth anything, and he had just had it hauled off by a scrap dealer
who paid him on the spot enough money to pay for fixing his mother's washing
machine ($125)!  Needless to say when I heard all this I was angry and
heartbroken.  To add insult to injury, the scrap dealer apparently had just
"thrown" the 51J-4 into the back of his truck according to the lady's son,
and then he and his helper hauled the KW-1 out into the front yard where
they proceeded to cut it up with a cutting torch!  Laying in the front yard
was a remnant of the KW-1's plastic kilocycle dial, the only remaining
evidence of the deal that never was.  The young man was serious when he said
he didn't want me to be "taken", as his mother was having severe mental
problems and he would never have allowed her to make a deal like that had he
been there.  This is NOT going to be a good weekend!

How's that for "BAD NEWS"?

W5IQJ