But 15 to 20 years ago,
I would agree, boatancher stuff was cheap, by the curb every week, and
calls for please "come take it away; I can't lift it anymore" were
common. My best boatanchor acquisitions (price wise) came during the late
80's to early 90's.
Same for me, Pete. Through the 70s-80s, even into the 90s I hauled
home a lot of stuff due to this factor, always looked at like I was a
bit touched in the head for doing so. The internet/auction sites, a
new crop of interest and new collectors playing catch up along with
the nostalgia factor drove demand up pretty high, pretty fast.
~ Todd, KA1KAQ
I found the best times for picking up "stuff" was in the early 70's at
hamfests. That was just past the peak of the era when AM was supposed to be
"dead" and anything unrelated to slopbucket was considered by many to be
worthless. In the post incentive licensing late 60's when the saturation of
anti-AM propaganda was at its peak, many items still carried high prices
because owners had not yet let go of the notion that it was capable of
fetching higher prices than more people were willing to pay. But by around
1971 or 1972 the owners had largely given up on the idea and I can recall
KW modulation transformers at flea markets with $10 price tags, and large
transmitting triodes like 450TL's, n.i.b. for $5.00 each (they weren't the
ideal tube for ideal for "leenyars"). Unused VT-4C/211's could be bought
all day for 35ยข each. Parts of every description were dirt cheap because
with the advent of slopbucket, homebrewing was being looked upon more and
more as a dying art. Even well-built homebrew rigs with the highest quality
components were looked upon as not worth their weight as scrap metal.
No-one wanted old style round panel meters, black bakelite dials and other
items, 19" rack panels or anything else with black wrinkle paint, large air
variables, heavy iron, wirewound resistors, mica caps, etc. Too much of
the "stuff", largely WW2 surplus items, was simply being hauled to the dump
because owners thought it wasn't worth the trouble to lug it to hamfests
(and probably back home again).
This was the era when I would go to a medium to large hamfest and when I
came back my car, one of those old circa-1962 Plymouths, wide as an army
tank, long enough (including the tail fins) to take up two parking spaces,
and with a trunk large enough to hold about as much as a modern compact
pick-up truck, would be crammed full of radio goodies. I once drove all
the way to suburban Chicago and returned with the trunk and every
conceivable cubic inch of passenger space filled. Even the front seat and
front passenger leg room was filled up, leaving only enough room at the end
of the long bench seat for me to sit and manipulate the controls of the car,
which was almost dragging the ground.
When guys would see me hauling flea market purchases to the car, they would
make wisecracks like "looks like somebody found himself a boat-anchor, yuk
yuk". To this day the term "boat-anchor" sounds derisive to me and I don't
use it.
But now I have the last laugh. I pretty well have my own private radio
warehouse, with enough spare stuff to build one or two more homebrew AM
kilowatts if I so desire, and to keep my present rigs running in some form
for at least another 50 years, while that kind of "stuff" now goes for big
bucks at hamfests and over e-Pay, if you can find it anywhere at any price.
I suspect most has long gone to the landfill, and what is left is being
hoarded in junkboxes and junk rooms like mine.
Actually I need to unload some of my stuff and let someone else put it to
use, because even with the separate former one-room school building that
serves as my ham shack, I have about run out of storage space.
But to quote John, W5MEU (SK), "better to have it and not need it than to
need it and not have it".
Don k4kyv
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