There are a few posts about high prices of tubes, and i feel like quite alot of people are sad and worried about this. I want to share a little story of mine about tubes.
Since a few of you know, i'm more a collector than a builder. I want to collect single tubes and expand my diverse collection of nixies. In the roughly four years i'm collecting this tubes i came across dozens of auctions with ridicolous high prices. When the few months were over where i was busy getting most of the common tubes (IN-XX, ZM10XX) i searched for less known (or more rare) tubes. After seeing the first auctions of rare tubes going for crazy prices, i was quite sad and felt like "man, you never will get any rare tubes". Still i was curious about nixie tubes an focussed more about actually building a clock and learn more about these fantastic wonders of technology. Auctions came less interesting and i only checked my ebay-tool once a day. After some months i was taught that actually waiting and being patient does the job. In two years i aquiered quite a few rare and extremely rare tubes, which actually were extremely cheap, compared to other acutions. One of the biggest "secrets" is actually to ask sellers if the have more, and provide a few info about what you do with them. Here are my "Top 4": 4.) ZM562M2 and M3 These are german elevator nixies, one has arrows, one has letters. I aquired them from a german ebayer, i actually purchased a set of B5092 from him, and asked if he has other nixies. He respondes with a few single quanities and "two weird ones, that no one could use". After asking for a image, they turned out as these rather rare tubes. Got them both for 10€ 3.) ZM1220 This very rare and rather big tube made it to me by luck. I was bidding on a carton box of different tubes, containig a few nixies. On the very bad pictures i thought its gonna be a Z566M, but when the package arrived, i was amazed about this wonderful tube. I payed only 45€ for the whole box, which containd a few other common tubes. 2.) CD-27 I purchased some rodan character tubes from a german ebayer. After asking about more, and getting "yes some very ugly big ones" i requested images about them :). It turned out to be CD27 with black spots. He asked 75€ for them. I purchased them. When they arrived, alot of the black spots was only dirt and could be cleaned. Leaving me with on perfect and two slightly burned out ones. Out of respect i contacted the seller and offered him another 50€. Making 125€ for all of them, which is still a very cheap price for this tubes. One slightly burnded out one made a very nice trade with another collector 1.) GI-11B This is for sure the most amazing tube ever. After buying a few old burroughs tubes, including the HB-106, the seller told me about a few more he has, but don't want so sell them since they are single pieces, old, and he doesn't think someone needs them. As i'm very curious for new types, i asked him what markings they had. Most were comon, but GI-11B came up. I replied that it must be GI-10 or so. No it wasn't, he told me about that its saying clearly "GI-11B Engineering Sample"... That rang bells. I asked if i can see an image. He told me about this former job at a electronics repair shop, that closed over 60years of operation, and left alot of stuff behind. After i told him about my hobby he was really enyoed that young people (like me) are still interested in such old stuff. End of the story was, that the offered me the tube for 10$ because of its oddity. I declinded the offer, paying only 10$ for such a tube would been ripping of, its likely he did not realize what value this tube has (materialistic and historical). I made him a better deal. This is my personal favourite tube - for one because of it rarity and specialit - for another because of the story What i wanted to tell you with this, is that you not should feel bad or sad about tubes that are at a high price currently. If you have time and just keeping an eye on offers, one day you will find a very good deal for sure.One big "issue" about the high prices might be social media. I have a personal instagram account (not related to nixies) and i spot nixie tubes quite often in the discover feed on technical pages. This for sure draws the attention of more people to nixies who have not known them yet. This is bad and good in one way, sure its nice when there are more people interested in nixie tubes, but mostly those new people are the ones that just "like to have a vintage clock" instead of knowing the details. Thats quite the same thing with people who want to build IoT devices and know jack about resistors and basic parts. Maybe one day this "hype" about some tubes will fade, and they will come back to a normal level. Just be pacient and keep your eyes open for good deals! Cheers, Jonathan -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. 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