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Rick7,

The tubes on the Ebay listing photo look from a distance like mid-1970's Philips-made ECC88 with the dimpled disc getter.

Identification is alsways complicated with tubes from Philips factories as pretty much the same tubes would be made all over. If these are what they appear to be and were called "Amperex", they'd be "orange globe" labelled. The Valvo version would be teh plain white label. These same tubes might have been labelled Mullard IEC, but I'm not sure. The blocky white lettering resembles the Mullard IEC style.

Philps used the same designs/ tooling in Heerlen, HOlland, Hamburg -as Valvo- and it's entirely possible that your new tubes were made in England in the Mullard, Blackburn factory.

The key will be to look at the tiny date code etched in the bottle. The first character of the second group is a "B", then these came form Mullard, Blackburn.

The complication is that, as time went on, RCA seems to have been taking tubes from whomever was left. I have RCA 12AX7s that are really East German RFTs, but labelled "Made in G.B".

I could be mistaken in the identification as the photo is a bit far off, but if those are the dimpled disc getter Philips from the mid-70's, they are suprising nice- not the Amperex Bugle Boy, but in the same spirit.

The whole story can be revealed in five seconds when you see if and what the etched codes say.

But, if these measure as nicely as advertised, and are the Philips, the $35 for 4 is a very good deal.


Cheers,

Bambi B


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