I’ve decided to upload some of the ephemera I have, some of which I am selling, some that is going in the garbage. I don’t know how I wound up with most of it. Instead of storing it on my computer, never to be seen again, I give it to you, intrepid parts historians of the world! I’ll pull back the curtain for some of you: for Google to give your site their seal of approval, they want to see constant activity and new content. Have you ever wondered about “news feeds” and “clutter”? That’s why it’s there: RSS feeds of stories that are relevant to that site causes Google to interpret the feed as new content, if it has relevant keywords. There are some coding tricks you have to do to keep Google from recognizing that it is just duplicate content from another site. Games! Google makes site owners jump through hoops to please their “sophisticated” algorithms (Al Gores’ Rhythm). So, in the spirit of keeping Google happy with new consumer-electronics relevant content I will post user manuals, interesting ads, stuff on tubes, parts, output transformers, music label catalogs and things having to do with audio and music. For your amusement, I have a 1945 catalog (late WWII), from Concord Radio Corp, formerly Lafayette (because the French didn’t do very well in the war, the name was embarrassing, so they changed the name from LaFayette to Concord, a kind of grape, and grapes are better for you than frogs). Many of the old radio catalogs have useful information. Sometimes you see a mystery part that you’ve always wondered about. For instance, this catalog has “molded wire wound resistors” that look like molded mica capacitors. “Ohhhh, so that’s why some of those mica capacitors tested really weird.” You don’t find many bad mica capacitors, and this explains a couple. The line up of resistors and capacitors are of particular interest and point out something reviewers and buyers should know about parts cost. Today’s “audiophile parts”, adjusted for inflation, are priced similarly to the premium broadcast/industrial part from yesteryear. For example, take the “High Speed Photo-flash DYKANOL capacitor 25 mfd., rated for operation at 2000 volts D.C.. Two or more units may be used to provide any desired multiple of this value in the construction of speed flash lamps for making stroboscopic pictures. Sealed metal case. Type KGT 6250-1; 25 uF; 660 VAC; 2000 VDC (peak DC voltage). $19.05″ If you go to an inflation calculator, published by the US Government, the perpetrators and perpetuators of inflation as a way of paying down the debt, you find that $19.05 in 1945 is equivalent to $246.66 in 2013 money. Those Dueland and Mundorf parts don’t seem so high now, do they? Not that I’m promoting expensive parts. I prefer a design that spends extra money to avoid the use of high priced coupling capacitors, and pricey Vishay resistors. Instead, I’d rather invest that money in “stacking power supplies” and sophisticated biasing schemes that allow for DC coupled circuits. There are many parts here that cannot be made today, ones loaded with PCBs and cadmium, all the reason to use them in your next repair or DIY project. If it’s dangerous, it has to sound better.
- You could buy an RCA 2A3 for $1.08
- RCA 50 for $1.29
- Hytron transmitting tubes
- Eimac
- Taylor
- Gammatrons!
- Boring old RCA 833A for $76.50, or $990.54 today (makes those hand made tubes from KR look cheap)
- TOBE molded oil-impregnated paper condensers (TOBE is a great name for a tube amp capacitor)
- Oilmite Capacitor
- Many desirable Aerovox condensers
- 05, 09, 10 series filled with Hyvol
- non-inductive paper in oil
- non-inductively wound paper tubulars
- Silver micas, including a bad-ass .02 type 1450 silver mica for .85 cents ($11 today)
- Many parts labelled “midget”
- “Oil filled and oil impregnated” because we can’t get enough oil in this country
- Cornell-Dubilier porcelain cased micas: .01 uf at 3,500 VDC for $7.06
- C-D “silver mikes”
- C-D Dykanol
- The “Blue Beaver–extremely small and very handy to use”
- The “Dual Beavers–provided with sturdy center mounting strap” Indeed!
- Sangamo
- GE capacitors
- DT Halowax, wax impregnated kraft paper (they really had impregnation on their mind in ’45)
- DA Metal cased bypass caps, that were non-inductively wound, wax impregnated and oil-cooled!
- Reliance Carbon Resistors
- Porcelain insulated carbon resistors
- Sprague Koolohm. I see a large resistor bursting through a wall when you need him. “Hey Koolohm!”
- IRC metal film, non-inductive, sheathed in phenolic
- An IRC 20,000 meg resistor? Couldn’t you use a ceramic spacer instead?
- The best deal in here is the IRC precision wirewound resistors, non inductive and “specially impregnated”. Oh yeah, tell me more!
- Ohmite “Brown Devils”, my favorite power supply resistor
- Riteohm precision
- Dividohm
- Beefy looking output, interstage transformers, audio reactors
- Simpson meters
- More “fake Micas”, or rather paper molded condensers that actually go bad over time, unlike most silver micas
- Plaque resistors that were meant to be mated to enclosures to increase their power handling
- Amphenol sockets (I used to think it stood for Amplifier Henol)
- Johnson sockets (hmmmm….)
- Polystyrene low loss octal sockets
- Steatite with phosphor bronze, silver plate contacts (the best)
- And finally Steatite wafer sockets “reinforced with cadmium plated steel springs”!
There’s a nice “certificate of achievement” awarded by Admiral Forestal. Inflation calculator: http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl
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