[R-390] Tubes

[Tim Shoppa]

Bob writes:
> There have been "big gulp" sales of R-390A tubes on eBay for quite a  
> while now. I suspect that a number of us have more than a couple of  
> spare tubes.

Many of the "big gulps" are JAN-surplus tubes and are either the
result of:

1: A new liquidation of military surplus.

2: The buyer of a previous liquidation of mil surplus tubes realizes
    that they've been sitting on the lot for a decade now (the 90's
    military liquidations were incredible - guys would come to the
    hamfests with truckfulls of tubes and get ignored because of
    everybody wanting to sell their latest 386-clone PC) and they
    aren't selling.

I do note that AES seems to have hiked their prices in the past
month (possibly correlated with the release of their 2007 catalog).

> I'm *not* trying to get in the tube business

I suspect the tube business requires a certain kind of mindset
that is not common among most business people. When the
stock of tubes has been sitting around for decades without
buyers, why should anyone think they can turn a buck when
the previous owners didn't either? There may be appreciating
prices for some subset of audiophile tubes but I don't see it
rubbing off on the radio tubes.

I'm interested from a user/collector point of view at what brands
and constructions of radio tubes are available and occasionally
have some deep epiphany as a result, (like, "wow, some 6CH8's
are really chirpy in this Heathkit HG-10 VFO and others aren't, boy
am I glad I've got bunches of these old TV tubes!")
but overall view them as fun and not a business :-). I'd like it
if NOS 5814A's and 12AX7's and 6L6GC's and other tubes common
in my radios were as cheap as ten or
fifteen years ago but do not know how to turn back the clock
myself. When I've found the price of NOS tubes to be truly
objectionable I often find there are Russian or Chinese equivalents
that seem to work just fine. (Just put some Russki 6L6GC's into
my old Heath 250V regulated bench supplies and they work
great!)

Tim.