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Without saying names directly I wanted to ask a question. There is a common seller on eBay out of Calif. who has been mentioned on this forum before in not the most flattering light. He sells some of the most desirable tubes. I've noticed many of his offerings have gold pins on tubes that I believe never were made with them factory. Could he be installing gold pins and them marking prices sky high claiming he has mega rare tubes or sometimes prototype tubes? Something smells fishy but how could you make a tube have gold that wasn't made that way originally? If caps are being installed wouldn't it be obvious?
Edits: 08/12/17Follow Ups:
He "gold" plates tube pins. I don't see any particularly desirable tubes from the seller. An occasional mc1 Mullard for 3 times the going market price? See how many revised feedbacks he has. This means he has bullied eBay buyers who left negative feedback into changing their feedback. I think his listings are also private so he is trying to hide something. Now I see he has some bogus listings for 100k or more. These fake listings are merely designed to entice buyers by leading them to believe he has a warehouse full of tubes which of course is nonsense. Ask him for a list of those tubes :-). Finally he gets better treatment from eBay because he purchases advertisements which gives him another avenue for removing feedback that the average seller does not have. Of course this is worked into his prices.
Here you can find his complete feedback which is not easily viewable on the eBay site.
http://toolhaus.org/cgi-bin/negs?User=old_guy_radiola&Dirn=Received+by&Many=ON
Unless you want to be scammed avoid like the plague.
Bill
In all fairness though, Radio Shack used to sell tubes, re-labeled with their name that had gold plated pins.
As a side note, gold plated pins don't add any real value as far as conduction or corrosion resistance goes. People are often misled about gold plating. Silver as well. Yes, gold doesn't corrode but it's a soft metal, so after a few insertions, the gold wipes away. I now use Rhodium plated RCA jacks. It's a hard metal in the Platinum family and after many insertions, it just doesn't wear off.
Yeah, that seller is flying in the grey market, big time! Oft times i wonder if it is a money laundering scheme. It seems that if you check the bay a lot for stuff, you find seriously whacked prices on run of the mill dirt cheap stuff, like nuts and bolts for 89.00, bs like that. And worse, the seller is sporting full 100% SR. I tried reporting him to ABay police but it seems he is not breaking any of their rules. I guess selling counterfeit tubes on that site is not an issue.
Ebay doesn't do anything unless the buyer complains. Hard to claim a counterfeit tube when manufactures use to relabel anything to fill orders.
OGR is a piece of work, cap lock stuck, every tube is rare.
The Audio Pimp of tubes.
"Could he be installing gold pins"
No, that would be impossible.
He is plating the original pins with gold and sometimes without cleaning them first.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
Oh dear, not that a-hole. Yeah, don't buy from him!Here are some gems he currently has:
Four 6189 tubes (computer 12AU7) that are "NOS" but have no boxes for $318 (I probably have 20 or 30 of these sitting in my 12AU7 bin).
Six GE 12AT7's for $162. At least they have boxes.
A pair of Japanese 6SN7's for $188.
Four RCA 12SL7's for $253.49 (he thinks they are Western Electric)
Please don't give this guy your money, as there are actually good tube dealers around who are nice, helpful, honest people. Look into contacting Jim McShane, Kevin Deal at Upscale Audio, or Jim at Vacuumtubesinc.
Edits: 08/12/17
There's also the "RCA" 7316's he has two listings for. AFAIK, the Heerlen, Holland factory was the only plant to ever manufacture a 7316, with Amperex branding the most prevalent. It's possible (but highly improbable) that some were manufactured in that facility and branded for RCA. Regardless, I have a couple dozen 7316's with an array of different Amperex label types, but all have the quad ridges on top and all have dull gray plates, unlike his RCA "7316's" missing the ridges and with shiny black plates. What he's selling appear to be nothing more than a garden variety RCA 12AU7. Not a bad tube by any means, but NOT a 7316.
I'm just wondering why he didn't use his gold paint on their pins. :)
The long plate bugle boy 12ax7 with mega getter and gold pins for $750 is interesting. Perfect example of a tube that never existed to my knowledge and some poor sap might buy it thinking he was lucky enough to buy some test sample they only made a few of.
I once pointed out on another major forum that the Ebay market was flooded at times with fake 7316s. Instead of getting positive reactions from that group I was rebuked. I tried to tell them that they didn't have any codes e,g. no Heerlen triangle, Ct# and were brands that were a lot like your RCA example that didn't fit for a real 7316.
He has a 100% positive rating so why shouldn't I trust him?
Like I've always said, "if you don't know tubes (that's me) then know your tube dealer".
He'll just ban you from purchasing from him if you ask too many questions. Also, if you return an item you are no longer allowed to leave negative feedback.
His two neutral feedbacks tell the whole story.
"if you return an item you are no longer allowed to leave negative feedback."
Is that a new eBay policy? It's been years since I had to return anything, but I was able to leave NFB back then.
--------------------------
Buy Chinese. Bury freedom.
Yes, you can't leave feedback for a returned item or canceled transaction.
Sometimes it's worth it to just leave negative feedback rather than getting a refund.
To get access to his "neutrals" and a bit more, I used the toolhaus.org "false positive" checkbox. Their explanation of "false positive" seems as if it applies to buyers, but it led to his very weak neutrals and negatives as a seller, as well:
From toolhaus.org:
"eBay has indicated that in May, 2008, sellers will no longer be able to leave negative or neutral Feedback for buyers. The merits of this will probably be debated for a very, very long time, but in the meantime, some sellers have suggested that they would leave "false positive" (FP) feedback. Specifically, they would leave positive feedback containing the word "negative" or "neg", as an indication of the type of feedback they wanted to leave.
Toolhaus will endeavor to remain neutral on the merits of that tactic, but we've added a new option to the Negs tool: A checkbox to enable searching for "false positive" feedback, and reporting the total number of those items found. The report is at the end of the Negs tool's output, with the counts of Negative, Neutral, and Withdrawn feedback items."
Bad tube(s) ? Leave neg feedback, then start a chargeback through PayPal, not ebay.
Or leave pos feedback, but with a strongly worded disclaimer.
I'm just being funny. I've been dealing with Jim for as long as I've been fooling with tubes. And I have no plans on going elsewhere.
Your gut feeling is usually the correct one. If this seller has a checkered past then it seems you are taking a gamble on giving yourself a hard time.
I don't think you can electroplate a tube pin after it's been made???
I'm not planning on buying anything off him but I have in the past. GE 5751 3 mica with gold pins. He sold to me claiming all factory original but afterwards I find out GE never made them with gold pins. I payed closer attention after that and noticed he sells some of best ecc83 tubes etc with same pins.
He's got a current 5751 auction. It is so misleading and deceptive on so many levels. Disgusting that they commit fraud like that over and over and over and yet eBay does nothing AND 100% golden feedback (freshly plated just like their tube pins, I'm sure).
There has been an epidemic of tubes with gold pins that never had them. This started several years ago on Ebay where it seems to have run in-abated since. Ebay has always been a caveat emptor situation, most of the dealers I had been using, appeared to my less than perfect eyes had not.
But as long as we are pissing and moaning, I did go back to the 'bay' to get tubes for a headphone amp I suddenly found myself forced to use. I got all manner of tubes, with plenty of crap, mostly noise issues. I refused to pass them down with the as is as found BS, unlike the guys who passed them onto me.
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