I like this story Jonathan... really nice finding the CD27 for that price! The others are great scores as well.
Bill On Sunday, April 21, 2019 at 11:38:01 AM UTC-7, SWISSNIXIE - Jonathan F. wrote: > > 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. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/18b4bfec-c2ef-4304-82be-53deff17b590%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
