Almost unbelievable stories , What good fortune have you had ?

[3nity]

Picked 2 Amek Einstein Super E.

around the month of february i saw an add on Montreal Kijijii.
An university was selling 2 consoles they have used on the audio/music program.
I called they ask 8K for both...i said i will think...i never called back...
like 3 months later they sent me an e-mail asking me 300$ for both consoles.
too good to be true i called them to confirm the price....and they say price is right 300$

I rented a small van  cuz its winter time..i got there and the guy at the dock says the price for both consoles is ridiculous.
I said look i talked to your boss and everything is ok he said im gonna called them to confirm price...the guy to whom i spoke wasnt available...
so the guy at the dock started talking bullsh*t about that guy...things like "were investigating on him" so i gotta be careful.
I was about to leave when the guy called the office and told the guy straightforward give the console right away!

I ended with 2 beautiful consoles since!

 

[volker]

I was walking with a friend through the neighbourhood, when we saw that some houses further down the road a guy was throwing stuff out of a second floor window. When we came near, we spotted a beat-up Jazz Bass between all the other things lying around. A piece of the headstock and a bigger chunk of the body was broken away, but it seemed fixable. Apparently, he was "moving out" of his ex-girlfriend's flat and was quite ok with us taking the bass home. The fix was actually easy, it has a pretty cool rock'n'roll look now and sounds just great.

 

[Emperor-TK]

I bought a tube Echoplex at a flea market for $5 from a guy selling plies or rusty metal.

A friend's dad pulled two U-47's from an NBC dumpster in New York in the 80's.  Apparently someone at NBC threw them away because they were old.

 

[pucho812]

A good friend of mine walking to work one day in NYC was passing a brownstone. He saw a lady walk out with what appeared to be an old guitar amp, later known to be a gibson. The lady proceeds to throw it away. My friend stopped her and asked what she was doing. Her response was that she was the landlord and her bum of a tenant skipped out owing her some cash and that they(her and her crew) were going to clear out all his crap so a new tenant can move in. So he askes her about the amp and talks here into seeing his place. Turns out the former tenant was a repair shop for amps. MY buddy convinced her to hold off so he could grab a truck and he would clear it all out for her.

Ended up scoring over 50 vintage fender, gibsons, various amps in various stages of the repair process. Also got all the parts bin and parts all for free.

 

[okgb]

Somebody lost their amps with this guy ? that's the only problem hate
profit off of someone's misfortune

 

[pucho812]

Somebody lost their amps with this guy ? that's the only problem hate
profit off of someone's misfortune

would you rather  they end up in the trash bin? at least my buddy who got them gave them a good home and to be perfectly honest had the repair guy kept records I am sure they would have been returned.

 

[okgb]

How close to being in possession of stolen goods is that ?
Or ripping off the widow , can't say i wouldn't be tempted myself
I returned the change purse i found at the airport , but it only had 20.00 in it
[ I looked ]

Reminds me of a discussion i heard where this guy asks another guy if he'd suck him for 10.00
, no was the obvious answer , then says how about 100 grand ? which makes him pause to which
he retorts , everyone has their price  , but at least it's actually saving the landfill ,
and on other occasions , another answer is  , If you didn't take it someone else would

 

[leadbreath]

i scored a vintage voxac50 head a fender tremolux head and a WEM halle cat all for less than £50!!!
i got them in an old electronics shop in durban, south africa.

 

[fazer]

I went to a church and repaired a channel on their main front of house mixer.  It was an API 2488 24channel with no monitor section since it was used as a mixer for PA not recording. 

About a year later I called them to see how it was going.  They told me they were getting a 40 ch board and I could buy the old board for 10k.  I did not have the money but wanted it so bad.  This is back in the late 80's. 

I called about 3 months later and the guy told me they needed a new postscript laser printer, about  $3k  at that time.

I got funds from the bank and got the console for 3 thousand dollars.  I have had it ever since.  Needs repaired and cleaned but sounds great.  24 channels of 550A's .  not for everybody but works well for me.

 

[emrr]

13 Western Electric 300Bs still in the box for $30.....

Really?!  You win, hands down. 

I just got an Audio Precision ATS-1 that was about to go in a dumpster.  Best recently. 

Best tube deal was a radio station cabinet full of RCA, most octal, some 5 and 6 pin.  Floor to ceiling, shelves about 7 feet wide.  $100 for all, 10 minutes to grab them.  Impossible to carry them all, so I cherry picked as fast as I could, and they settled for $50.  Probably got 400 tubes. 
 

 

[sodderboy]

A friend worked at Audio Techniques in NYC in the 90's. A customer told him that he had a synth that he could not get to output. He brought it in and sold it for$50. My friend got it because it looked funky and was in a suitcase. He discovered that it was a Synthi A and it led him to get into analog synths.
Mike
Ps: no cool equipment finds for me, but Madonna stroked my talisman in '89.  I made it for a friend from a piano stool claw foot and put a large quartz crystal in the claw.  I was wearing it to try it while  teching Madonna sessions.  She wanted it but only got to stroke it. My friend couldn't believe it.

 

[tchgtr]

Fun topic, and I enjoy reading people's stories about this. 
The B&O stereo ribbon mic in my avatar photo was given to me at a yard sale here in LA almost 20 years ago. The people were trying to get me to take a spinet piano for free so I would carry it down a hillside. I declined, but asked how much they wanted for a huge old Atlas boom stand in original condition. The one with the big, triangular base. "Take it", they said, as they didn't want to carry that heavy thing down the hill.
  Wrapped around the base was a cable, and when I pulled on it, the ribbon mic came out from behind a desk. I held it up like it was a rat and asked how much. They kindly told me it was mine. They also gave me a very old modular home stereo Dynaco preamp that had been built from a kit, which later turned out to contain 4 Mullard 12ax7 in prime condition. I tip my hat again to these generous souls, and my ex, who convinced me to stop at the sale.
  ,,,and
    I found a pair of the original NS-10 at a thrift store in Sunland,CA for $22. They had the front covers, so I didn't recognize them at first. I frantically asked the nice kid at the store if he had a way to check them, and he very helpfully almost blew them after having a problem getting the hookup right, and the power came on with the volume at full. Thought for sure he had blown the woofer as I saw it leap forward, but I guess the portable stereo he was using didn't have enough ooomph to blow it.
Soon after that, a good friend gave me a Yamaha sub-woofer that matched the NS-10 which didn't work. It was just a loose connector, and this is still a nice listening rig in my studio.
  My favorite recent purchase was a pair of original CAD E-100s for $80. The sellers thought one was bad, but it seems that folks don't realize how much these mics rely on the 9V rechargeable batteries they carry, and after spending another $40 on those, I have a great pair of mics.
 

 

[alexc]

1972 fender pa100  with original RCA tubes for $180usd
Like a silverface twin reverb 100 (non ultralinear) with 4 inputs, tube mixed
Absolutely a great amp and great for a pedals matrix

1967 Encel (Sansui rebadge I think) integrated stereo hifi amp EL84 PP with original tubes $180usd
Sounds fabulous. Has variable damping and a input for a specialized speaker with a feedback coil
(which I don't have). Most deep bass.

 

[BladeSG]

A couple of years back I picked up a mint (but non working) Peavey Classic 30 for $120 only used on Sundays in Church. My intention was to use the chassis/ cab for a Ceriatone project. I put a new set of tubes in it and it's now like brand new, literally would pass for new. Will do some mods to it also when I get some spare time....

Also picked up a Korg synth years ago where the previous owner had engraved his own name on the front. When he sold it, he scratched out the name and because it looked shit I got it for $300. Played with it for a few months a decided I didn't like anything it had to offer. A mate of a relative with middle eastern background gives me $1K for it because the factory soundset had funky sounds suited to his middle eastern background.

 

[Blue Jinn]

Mellotron from a pawn shop for $330 + tax. Talked them down from $500.00. I used up a couple decades of good luck on that one.

Also, EV631 "throw that out it doesn't work." Actually, loose connection in the XLR cable. I fixed the cable rather than buy a new cable for some reason. Cool looking Buddy Holly mic.

 

[amorris]

Our new rental house came with a custom wall built to bhouse the landlords widescreen and stereo, empty of course, but in the garage was the 50 inch widescreen. Landlord said it was broken. I plugged it in and got static. So i wheeled in and it works fine. Just not the com.ponent input. Cable works great!

 

[pucho812]

a client of mine purchased a 650A API PSU for 30 dollars off evil bay... the reason it was so inexpensive was the original owner said he could not get output voltage on the test points and that it didn't work.  Tested it under load and  it works just fine. 8) Now my client has a spare to rotate in and out in emergency...

 

[JohnRoberts]

About a week ago, I found a full un-opend bottle of coors light in my front yard...  When I was a younger man I would considered that good fortune, Now as an older beverage snob who brews my own beer, the Coors seems more like an insult from the gods. I figure it was left behind by the "occupy wall street crowd" who left their encampment in downtown Hickory, MS sometime around then... (or maybe they were never in Hickory  ;D ).

JR

 

[pucho812]

in my younger days I would have figured the coors is a sign that someone upstairs likes you, as I too have gotten  older and turned into a somewhat beer snob, I wonder who did you piss off? ;D

 

[okgb]

I was in Chicago last month and I couldn't believe how many Bud trucks driving by that i saw , Big Semi's
can't remember the last time i actually bought a commercial or domestic beer , there's
so many good micro & craft breweries now , that's almost like a find discovering a new brew