Bala Cynwyd, Pa. vintage electronics sale:

[Joe Cro N3IBX]

Bob WB2UJD wrote:

I was not able to go to this sale, wondering if anyone from the list did.
Pardon my scepticism, but it seemed a little fishy to me.  Anyone go?  Find
anything good?  Good prices?
Just wondering...

Bob,
      I too was a skeptic. As a matter of fact, I was referred to Peter by
someone else and didn't actually see the posting. I received an email from
Peter explaining it was a "silent auction". I had never been to this kind of
sale before and thought I'd see what was there. I even contacted a friend of
mine to come along but he couldn't make it.

As it turned out there were a lot of items. The Heathkit items were mainly
test and hi-fi gear (an original A-4 amp from 1950/51); but everything was in
superb condition with manuals and all documentation. Just about every
Heathkit catalog from 1950 to about 1980.  There were also many ancient parts
ie: a spark gap coil, all sorts of transformers, tubes, knobs, switches, some
Heathkit AM and AM-FM radios, lots of Allied material from the '40's like FM
tuners, tube testers, various test equiptment, hi-fi equiptment. There was a
cute little Philmore 3 tube regenerative receiver from 1939-40 with manual, a
1934 "Haigis" 1/2 watt two tube 5 meter tranceiver, 3 new in box T-17 carbon
mikes, a "Webster-Chicago" wire recorder bought new in 1947, etc etc. etc.

Going through everything was like an archealogical dig. It's former owner was
a fanatic in keeping documentation, and most items had the manual and
original receipt with them along with any modifications that were made, etc.

They had everything arranged in lots, with a number assigned to each lot.
Unfortunately the sellers had unrealistic expectations as to what each lot
was worth. To someone who likes to homebrew there were a lot of material that
could be used. To a collector there were some decent items and reference
material. To someone who wanted to buy and resell, it would have been a big
dissapointment since they would probably consider most of the items to be
junque.

I had hopes of finding more amateur radio equiptment than was actually there.
I wonder if there was another private sale sometime before. The amount of
parts he had would have supported a fairly large collection of gear and hi-fi
equiptment.

Overall Bob, I think it was worthwhile sale. I'm a collector/user, and
sometimes homebrewer and found just about everything interesting to say the
least. There was even a homebrew neagtive ion generator that looks as if were
built around 1941!

       Regards,

                   Joe Cro N3IBX



Joseph Cro N3IBX
Collins, Heathkit, Hallicrafters
Drake, National, and General
Boatanchor language spoken
here: <A HREF="http://hometown.aol.com/yardleyite/index.html">N3IBX Basement of Boatanchors</A>

        <A HREF="http://members.aol.com/yardleyite/collect/index3.htm">N3IBX Boatanchor Website</A>
        <A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/n3ibx/N3IBX.html?1000084610680">N3IBX AM Studios:</A>
Collins Radio Association Member # 122
AM International Member # 1280

-----------------------------------------------------------
This list is a public service of the City of Tempe, Arizona
-----------------------------------------------------------

Subscription control - http://www.tempe.gov/lists/control.asp?list=HEATH
To post - HEATH at LISTSERV.TEMPE.GOV
Archives - http://interactive.tempe.gov/archives/HEATH.html