Seems Like Xformers are Worth Their Weight in Gold Now

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it’s not just transformers, although they seem to have seen the highest rises in price. I do a lot of eBay and non-eBay auction buying and the samegoing on with vintage silicon, capacitors, whole units, etc. You only have to go to the grocery store to see that we’re in an inflationary moment.

as for lack of availability of vintage parts (esp. transformers), things have been steadily drying up for years. There’s only so many radio stations and institutions (schools, churches, theaters, etc) full of vintage gear to decommission.

Of course, you always have the career sellers that try to push the market higher. It’s not new. And it’s had a limited affect historically.
 
Wow, that price is absolutely insane.

I guess I should feel relieved that I managed to invest in some A-10 and A-24 transformers last year for my pair of LA2A clones.
 
Same old story here. I nabbed a few UTCs and Altecs back when they were cheap. It’s tempting to sell them.

Even the red headed step child of vintage transformers, Triad, has prices creeping up. I’m keeping mine, though, I have grown far too fond of their distortion and droopy high frequency response.
 
Although I think most gear companies use alternatives anyway. So I actually don’t think it would drive a reissue market.

I mean look at the Telefunken VF-14M

I think those tubes are in the multi thousands now.

But how much would it actually cost to tool up for it again and source original alloys and materials?

David at Cinemag recreated the Peerless 217D at great personal cost - he told me many many thousands that he expects he will never get back.

He did it as a labor of love.❤️
 
put in your orders for the 217d now! the lead time is kinda long; David says they take TIME and concentration to build.

ps I will part with nos A-19s for $400 shipped...
 
put in your orders for the 217d now! the lead time is kinda long; David says they take TIME and concentration to build.

ps I will part with nos A-19s for $400 shipped...
Wow so magnanimous of you! $14 less than evilBay! I think I have at least 3-4 of those myself. Tech gold?

I called Cinemag a few days ago and ordered a 217D. He said they had one extra in the shelf 😬
 
On the tangent of other overpriced vintage components, I bought a pair of paper-in-oil (PÍO) capacitors intending to replace the polyester film caps on the outputs of my OneBottle preamps. In some brief listening tests the PÍO sounded nowhere near as good as the polyester or polypropylene options. I’m going with a pair of NPTM polyprop.

Maybe the PIO need some voltage across them to reform or something, but they sounded smeared, muffled, vintage in the not good way.
 
On Ebay and action sites there's sellers that have the same item selling an extremely high price for a long time, they basically don't need to sell it in a rush and are just waiting for the buyer that can pay that amount or someone that as a problem and urgently needs that item to solve it so it has no choice than to pay the high price.

BUT having an auction doesn't mean someone will pay that price,
sp to really see the market value of item, one should not go to the active auctions but to the Complete auctions, that's the only way of knowing what the buyers are willing to pay.
On Ebay thats easy to do, go to "advanced search" and cross "Completed Listings", then the results of a search will show only auction that ended, so you can check the final price.

Here are some final prices of UTC transformers that were sold in the last months, you can see that the actual price people are paying is much lower of what was shown here in the thread:

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On Ebay and action sites there's sellers that have the same item selling an extremely high price for a long time, they basically don't need to sell it in a rush and are just waiting for the buyer that can pay that amount or someone that as a problem and urgently needs that item to solve it so it has no choice than to pay the high price.

BUT having an auction doesn't mean someone will pay that price,
sp to really see the market value of item, one should not go to the active auctions but to the Complete auctions, that's the only way of knowing what the buyers are willing to pay.
On Ebay thats easy to do, go to "advanced search" and cross "Completed Listings", then the results of a search will show only auction that ended, so you can check the final price.

Here are some final prices of UTC transformers that were sold in the last months, you can see that the actual price people are paying is much lower of what was shown here in the thread:

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Thank you Whoops.

I just scored two A20s NIB never soldered for less than $200.

There are deals to be had.
 
There are deals to be had.
how about $350 for an A-19? deal?
Maybe the PIO need some voltage across them to reform or something, but they sounded smeared, muffled, vintage in the not good way.
maybe, I have had trouble with leakage (dc not being blocked) with a few nos pio. I think reforming could help
 
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