The only reasons that I can think of are 1) the B-8971 is tinier and might have been more complicated to manufacture. 2) Ultronics having ordered thousands of the B-7971's resulted in efficiency improvements in manufacturing the B-7971 such that the price came down.
Off the top of my head I am aware of three variants of the B-7971 internals. Most likely those changes came about from making so many of them they found ways to improve the manufacturing process. It is possible that B-8971's never benefited from any manufacturing improvements or design changes due to the small number of them that appear to have been made. Robert On Saturday, September 2, 2023 at 11:58:32 AM UTC-4 Robert wrote: Interesting that the B 8971 is much more expensive than the B7971, was this used in any commercial products ? Thanks Rob On 2 Sep 2023, at 14:13, Robert G. Schaffrath <> wrote: The B-7971 is an interesting study. It is listed at $15.85 in single quantities, which is still worse than the $5/each I paid for NOS surplus from Meshna in 1979. However, running that number through the inflation calculator for January 1970 to July 2023 and I get $128.18 (which is shocking to see how much our money has been devalued all these years). When B-7971's appear on eBay, they tend to sell for around $175-$200 each. Not that big a markup over the original price when inflation is taken into account. Of course most of the tubes being sold are used but still, factoring in 53 years of time for something no longer made, the markup is not that big. I am guessing that Ultronics was paying the $9.50/each ($76.83 - 2023) price for the quantities they were working with. On Friday, September 1, 2023 at 3:45:14 AM UTC-4 Audrey wrote: Oh. It didn't attach. On Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 10:13 PM Audrey <> wrote: My understanding is that the prices dropped a lot as time went on, here's another price catalog from 1970 that mentions most of the same tubes for much cheaper, with B-5750 types just $4@1000pcs - roughly $25/pc now. On Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 10:02 PM LB <> wrote: Hi all, Out of curiosity, I took a look at some old Burroughs nixie tube price lists, and took the prices (1-99 pcs) to an inflation calculator (1963->2023). Here are some highlights: B-4991 (Miniature, $68.00) -> $677.10 B-7094 (Jumbo, $45.00) -> $448.08 B-4032 (Miniature, $33.00) -> $328.59 B-5971 (13 Segments, $16.75) -> $166.79 6844-A (Standard, $11.00) -> $109.53 B-9012 (Pixie, $5.00) -> $49.79 I know that these tubes were made pretty much exclusively for military/non-consumer applications, but it's still interesting to see just how expensive nixies were in reasonable quantities. -- 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 view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/b904ba4c-c1a0-4fdc-8e79-91019281564dn%40googlegroups.com <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/b904ba4c-c1a0-4fdc-8e79-91019281564dn%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> . -- 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 view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/e4c4e38d-714b-4d3e-b675-38a236e07e1en%40googlegroups.com <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/e4c4e38d-714b-4d3e-b675-38a236e07e1en%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> . -- 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 view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/f201df98-74c5-455e-9eaa-35f8138f9d33n%40googlegroups.com <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/f201df98-74c5-455e-9eaa-35f8138f9d33n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> . -- 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 view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/5362200c-a0a2-4c63-bc15-66d145aec7e1n%40googlegroups.com.
