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RE: NOS tubes in white boxes

Posted by Jim McShane (D) on July 20, 2008 at 20:50:55

In Reply to: NOS tubes in white boxes posted by JNS on July 20, 2008 at 18:06:54:

"I hope that you understand that it is very rare for tubes to be NOS in white boxes."

I believe you are mistaken.

There are a number of very valid reasons a tube would not be in the original box, the most common are:

1. The tubes came from bulk packs, as Tubemonger said. These tubes come in "egg-crate" type boxes without individual packaging. Right now I have "egg-crates" of:

12AT7 RFT
6CA4/EZ81 RFT
6GK5 Hitachi
6FQ7 GE
6AN8 "GE" (only a few left, they are Ei made)

I've had others as well.

2. As another poster(s) said, sometimes the boxes are shot. They disintegrate from heat/humidity, they are poorly stored and get damaged, or somebody ripped off the flap(s). I store my stock in a controlled temp/humidity environment, but before they get to me who knows??

3. And while it's less common than it used to be, in the 70s and early 80s "surplus" tubes were sold by many electronic distributors. These were name brand tubes that came in white boxes, they were put in there by whomever purchased the surplus. I used to buy new GE 6550As from my local distributor (Dot Electronics in Oak Lawn, IL) that were packaged in white boxes. When Dot and other stores like it closed those "surplus" tubes hit the market.

4. New production tubes sometimes come from the importer in white boxes. One of the major US distributors for SED/winged C tubes packs them in white boxes. For a short time you could only get KT-88 EH tubes from New Sensor in white boxes. At some point some of those tubes might hit the market as NOS. That did happen with some KT-90 Eis.

"I have noticed an increase in what I consider to be a very disturbing trend among online tube sellers, some of these sellers are highly regarded by members of the Asylum."

I take these sorts of accusations very seriously. And very personally.

So let me ask you then - are you accusing me of misrepresenting the condition of the tubes I sell? There are other VERY reputable and fine vendors here - one replied to your post too - are you accusing them?

There have been scoundrels as long as there has been commerce. But if you buy from a vendor with a top notch reputation you'll get what you paid for.

BTW, I noticed a listing on your eBay store for (3) Silvertone 26 tubes that said this:

"Only 2 of these tubes came with original boxes, but all of the tubes are NOS."

By your definition we should be very wary, correct, since it's such a rare occurrence??

And one last thing...

"NOS stands for new old stock. Without fail this means a tube that has NEVER been used in a circuit other than the seller's test equipment."

You have NO WAY of knowing for sure, no way. Unless you had the tube in your possession from the time it left the factory to now you don't know with 100% certainty if ANY tube has never been used.

What leads you to believe a tube hasn't been tested before? Some of these tubes have been sold 4-5 times over the years. Often each sale was preceeded by a test.

If a tube has run for 30 minutes can you always tell? How about 45? How about an hour? How about 4 hours?

How do you know a lightly used but new looking/testing tube wasn't put in a proper looking new or NOS box?

If you want to remind people to be diligent and be cautious when they buy tubes because there are charlatans out there, that's just fine. If you want to remind people what NOS is an abbreviation for that's great. But please don't come in here with guns blazing, sirens going, lights flashing - and make blanket statements like you did. It won't stop crooks from being crooks, but it will cause the honest vendors more grief, since the good guys will bend over backwards to give their customer products that at least meet - or hopefully even exceed - the purchaser's expectations!

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

Kimber Kable

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