Hammond B3 Leslie 122 Pricing help

[gar381]

Hi Guys

I need help for a friend of mine.  He is an old guy like me and in the old days
He was a  great hammond player.

He has a B3 and a 122 tall boy that has been sitting in his living room for the
last 20 years un-played.  These days its a conversation piece and a place to
show off family pictures.  This setup is located in Sandusky Ohio.

Last time he used it it worked fine but as not been turned on for at least 20 years.
It has the bass pedals and the Hammond moving dolly.  He can't find either the
power cable and leslie cable.  He will be moving to a down sized house in the next year
or so and needs to find out what his setup is worth and will be looking for a buyer.

Any Ideas on Value??  Anyone interested ??

Thanks guys

GARY

 

[boji]

3-5k depending how clean the pair is.  Wish I had the cash laying around (and the room for it). I wish your friend luck.

Had a rather dinged-up tall boy 140? without the B3 I auctioned for 1k after integrating a custom variable speed and brake pedal.  Didn't even have the horns on top; for treble it had a cylindrical enclosure with a pair of 3x4 speakers in them. Sold fast.

 

[Tubetec]

I did see an old C series recently ,tone wheel all valve with single rotor tube leslie , somebody wanted it moved fast , 1000 euros
very good nick too .

;D Theres thousands of old organs here from the days of the the servile institutions of state, small churches and chapels, convents and religious run schools all had them . Hammonds were very popular , but as always the desirable valve/tonewheel models are fairly rare . 

Usually  units are sold as unserviced or sometimes with issues of one sort or another , anything from around 200-1000 euros is the common rate for Hammonds ,drawbar models tending  to fetch more .

Id say your friend would need the unit serviced in order to get the money Boji suggests its worth, untested, unserviced and missing parts about 25% of that .
The service interval and procedure are all detailed in the manual , its an  easy job for anyone familiar with electronic and mechanical , these units will most likely have had a very easy life so almost all the mechanical adjustments should be good ,
theres a few waveforms and voltages to be checked at the various test points , if your able to hit those numbers your basically good , tubes and caps and everything in there is generously  de-rated  to give long life .
The main tasks in the service are firstly cleaning/dusting it  out  then filling the various drip and wick fed oil reservoirs on the mechanism with a compatible lubricant . 

What you will often find is the knack of starting them has been forgotten or lost and  they get advertised as broke .
Might pay not to be too much of a 'clever clogs'  if your bidding on one advertised as not running , or on the other hand if your selling get a person  who knows to at least test it first before offering it as a non runner. 

 

[pucho812]

depending on shape and if it is running, I have seen them go anywhere from 3-5K easily. Some guys are really trying to push top dollar and will ask upwards of 10K but realistically no one is buying at that price nor are they evening looking when it's listed  that high. To be fair, if it is mint to near mint, I could see getting upwards of 6k. make sure it is oiled and see if it runs. most likely it will but it may need to be worked to get rolling again.

 

[mjrippe]

As you probably know, if he does find the cables do not turn it on.  Being 50? years old and not turned on for 20 years means that it will need servicing before power up.  Both the tube electronics and the mechanicals should be gone over. 

 

[pucho812]

I would bet if it did not get oil in 20 years. that  mechanically it would not run. Tubes  and the rest would be a toss up.

Then again the way Hammonds are built, there is a good chance it would just run, but I wouldn't risk it.

 

[Tubetec]

Of course the old oil will have turned to crud ,  Id say some drops of light machine oil into the bearing surfaces to begin ,along with moving things until they free up . Once its moving fill the reservoirs with the recomended stuff

You definately dont want to try run it with no speaker load ,there could be all kinds of noises as it charges up , if the secondary remains unloaded it could easily damage the transformer windings . 

 

[gar381]

Thanks guys for all your thoughts and help!! 

I will send my buddy the link to this thread.  I know
he will appreciate all the advice from this wealth
of knowledge here.


Gary

 

[rockinrob86]

I would say in the “as-is” condition, you could get 2k-3k.  This restored and running is 5-6k, but definitely don’t turn anything on and don’t oil it if you don’t know how to work on it.

If you want to get it running, put fresh Hammond oil just covering the sponges in the tubs (you don’t want them to overflow, it will mess stuff up including the vibrato scanner, necessitating a full tear down!).  Wait a couple days and check on the tubs, add some more oil.  After a week or two, try to turn the tone wheel with your hand.  Visually inspect the thin silk strands going into the tone wheel and add oil with a dropper if any tonewheels are stuck.  Wait another week or so, and keep doing this.  Eventually the tonewheel will turn freely, it just takes time for the oil to drip down the strings from the pans and get in there.

Only use Hammond oil period.  Nothing else ever.

The preamp in the organ and the amp in the Leslie need the electrolytics replaced, but are probably good other than that.  My m3 didn’t have a fuse, I like to add those but haven’t worked on a b3.

If you do all of this, it will probably work well, but there are some other issues these can occasionally have.  Late 60’s and 70’s b3’s have this foam inside that rots and is a big pain.  70’s ones aren’t worth as much.

But you shouldn’t turn the thing  on if you don’t do all of the above.  This would make the 2k organ a 5k organ.  If you turn it on an electrolytic cap could fail and blow a power transformer.

My ‘56 m3 was in my grandmothers house for my whole childhood, and my parents garage from 1999-2014 or so.  In 2014, I did the above over a month and it’s been running great ever since.  I add a little oil every year and that’s it!

 

[pucho812]

if you need capacitors and such,  talk to TWG, tone wheel general hospital....



http://www.tonewheelgeneral.com

 

[abbey road d enfer]

Beware there are a number of models that can be mistakenly believed to be B3's; they're the BA BC BV and B2.
They are often advertised by their sellers as B3's but do not have any of the real B3's appeal to serious buyers.