I was watching this auction to see where it would go. Incredible!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/RCA10BP4B-picture-tube-Tests-good-/190873836801?ssPageName=ADME:B:WNA:US:3160

Well you can't get them rebuilt anymore so what are you gonna do.

My thoughts, exactly. We all know that's too much (by yesterday's market, anyhow). But if you really really want a particular tube right now, and so does one other guy, that's a bidding war.

Welcome to your future :(

Phil Nelson

I think its a one time deal. Someone needed it real bad and had the money.

Takes two (or more) to tango. The bid history shows four different people thought it was worth $200+.

It may be unwise to draw sweeping conclusions from a single auction, but it seems unavoidable that CRT prices will rise somewhat when rebuilding is unavailable.

Phil Nelson

Well the guy just paid for it so I will be shipping it out today. I hope it was just someone who got caught up in a bidding war, as I would hate to think thats what a 10bp4 is going for now a days. The last 7bp4 that sold on ebay only went for about $150 and if I'm right the last 10bp4 sold on ebay went for about $100. Also you see lots of 10" sets on ebay for under $100.

I think the guy has a real nice 10" tv that he wants to work and the last thing he needed is a good picture tube. Or he got a set that belonged to grandma and Grampa that he watched as a kid and wants to get it working.

Let us hope, because I too think this is nuts.

One last thing, When people see stuff like this "Good 10BP4's now fetching record prices" It surely will drive up the price.

Could be 5 years from now that price will look cheap.
I've got one spare 10BP4 that I am saving for a future
set but have no intentions of selling it even for $250.

Carl

I have a couple of spares myself that I'm holding on to myself. My wife and I were talking last night about how crazy the price was on this auction. If people continue to collect TVs then prices like these are just the beginning.

I wonder if you can take a bad tube and fit in a tiny DLP projector fed with UV light?

I wonder if you can take a bad tube and fit in a tiny DLP projector fed with UV light?

I've often wondered if some future method of reclaiming defective CRTs would become the norm after all of the easily obtained and dwindling reserves of good ones get sold off . David here has mentioned one possible method of getting a picture back on a screen and gave rise to my thoughts of wondering if it would ever be practical to externally heat a cathode with something like the type of system that flashed the getter and thus circumvent a bad heater . Yea , lots of em get gassy or just outright loose their cathode emission without burning out their heaters , but a fair amount of otherwise good tubes have been declared dead over the years due to bad heaters . Tubes that could see new life if their cathodes could be heated . Crazy idea , i know , but sometimes solutions can come from idle thinking . I would be most concerned with seeing sky high CRT prices as making the CRT akin to ivory / two pounds of tusk being worth more than 2K pounds of elephant . I guess price increases are bound to happen , rarity + demand = $$$ , so I guess it really would be best to sit on any that one may posses if they're appreciating faster than gold .

I have a couple of spares myself that I'm holding on to myself. My wife and I were talking last night about how crazy the price was on this auction. If people continue to collect TVs then prices like these are just the beginning.

or the end as collectors die off, will there be more in the pipe line (collectors) to continue the interest? I mean really how many world wide are there that are actively seeking out parts? I wonder what the ratio of old timers to newbs is, and if that continues the newbs will become smaller and smaller. I suppose there could be a resurgence of interest (hard to predict what will tickle the fancy of people in the future), but that presupposes that their will be people that can actually fix sets vs just collect non working hulks, which in that case there will be no need for "good" crt's just relics to have as conversation pieces.

I bet there's still a place to get those rebuilt... With thousands and thousands of little Mom 'n' Pop tube rebuilders still around as late as the 80s, that equipment is at least partly still out there someplace. I'd be shocked if nobody is still doing it... Last time I had a 10BP4 rebuilt about 10 years ago, it was $39 from VDC.

Charles

I bet there's still a place to get those rebuilt... With thousands and thousands of little Mom 'n' Pop tube rebuilders still around as late as the 80s, that equipment is at least partly still out there someplace. I'd be shocked if nobody is still doing it... Last time I had a 10BP4 rebuilt about 10 years ago, it was $39 from VDC.

Charles

There doesn't seem to be anyone still doing it in the US, but I did find this place in Canada:

http://www.wmicronics.com/pictubesol.htm

EDIT: Ah, nevermind, I just found some old topics here saying that place is some kind of scam. And in South Carolina rather than Canada.

I bet there's still a place to get those rebuilt... With thousands and thousands of little Mom 'n' Pop tube rebuilders still around as late as the 80s, that equipment is at least partly still out there someplace. I'd be shocked if nobody is still doing it... Last time I had a 10BP4 rebuilt about 10 years ago, it was $39 from VDC.

Charles

Problem is today it's nearly 35 years later. Most of the folks running those 80's shops are far into retirement or no longer above ground. I'm sure the equipment and parts are still kicking around, but it basically only takes one generation to loose the skill set required to do the task. Meanwhile the equipment will eventually be scrapped. :sigh:

On the other hand, there's still no shortage of cheap combo consoles to pull good used 10BP4's from. But I'd avoid ebay until last resort.

Wow - that's pretty steep. I have one very good one now and one more coming in, in a '47 Crosley that I hope tests good too. Maybe I can make some mega buck on them in the future! :thmbsp:

or the end as collectors die off, will there be more in the pipe line (collectors) to continue the interest? I mean really how many world wide are there that are actively seeking out parts? I wonder what the ratio of old timers to newbs is, and if that continues the newbs will become smaller and smaller. I suppose there could be a resurgence of interest (hard to predict what will tickle the fancy of people in the future), but that presupposes that their will be people that can actually fix sets vs just collect non working hulks, which in that case there will be no need for "good" crt's just relics to have as conversation pieces.

That is how the conversation steered. I commented that IF people continue to collect these in the future that prices can only go up. I emphasized the if and she commented that there were a fair, not a lot but a fair amount of younger people at the ETF convention this year.

I am brand new to the hobby and on the young side (40). I am really only interested in getting the sets I collect to work. Not really sure what attracted me to this, other than my love of antiques and memories of my grandfather pulling a tabletop set out in his backyard with an extension cord and antenna to watch a ballgame in the summer time.

Plus there is a great satisfaction in learning this stuff, doing the work and actually getting results. I started with a few radios and have had immense help from folks on this forum. Have not completely restored a TV by myself yet, but I am getting there.

Hope the prices do not go up TOO high for working parts, but understand if they do.

... Last time I had a 10BP4 rebuilt about 10 years ago, it was $39 from VDC.

Charles

Really ?!? Hawkeye was charging $300. I can't imagine how VDC could do it for only $39. It involves so much time and labor not to mention the cost of the new gun.

VDC has been know to buy up other re builders inventory. Possibly they were sitting on a good sized stash back then. But still hard to believe they would have blown them out at $39. :scratch2:

I was watching this auction to see where it would go. Incredible!

(10BP4-B sold for: $265.00 + $35.50 fixed shipping = $300.50)

Well you can't get them rebuilt anymore so what are you gonna do.

Well, you could go to the yearly convention at ETF.

I know there were some in the flea market, and there were at least four 10 inch tubes in the silent auction.

Two 10BP4's - one with 100% emission and another with less.

(The 10BP4's never were aluminized, unless some rebuilder did it.)

One aluminized Sylvania 10SP4 with an extremely light gray faceplate and 70% emission, went home with me for one tenth of that cost! This CRT is basically an aluminized 10BP4 on steroids for industrial use.

I cannot remember what the other 10 inch tube was, it might have been a 10FP4 or an unmarked round 10 inch tube.

None of the four went for nearly as much as the eBay auction.

I had to cut my buying his year, due to limited space in my CRV, as I had to pick up a floor model set in Dayton.

James

Unless you are quite a ways out from ETF, then it is still a wash.

Really ?!? Hawkeye was charging $300. I can't imagine how VDC could do it for only $39. It involves so much time and labor not to mention the cost of the new gun.
My understanding was that Scotty greatly increased his prices the last few years of business because he no longer wanted to be doing it, and he also knew he was the last one doing it. And I think the $300 cost was for roundie color CRTs, not B&W tubes.

I bought six 17-inch Predicta CRTs from VDC for $322.51 total shipped to me as recently as February 2010. It ws much cheaper to buy them outright from VDC's stock rather than to try and deal with Scotty.

.

Well he certainly charged me $300 for rebuilding a 10FP4. I've heard the same price from others too.

I also got one of those $40 VDC 17 inch Predicta CRTs :) Not that I've ever found a bad one. It seems they were much more reliable than the 21" version.
http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4100/4859071154_84efa8a46f.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/70039806@N00/4859071154/)

Well he certainly charged me $300 for rebuilding a 10FP4. I've heard the same price from others too.
Then he really did jack up the rates near the end!

I could not even sell my known-good 10BP4 for $75 a while back. It was inside a beat-up RCA 8T241 cabinet and chassis.

I am brand new to the hobby and on the young side (40). I am really only interested in getting the sets I collect to work. Not really sure what attracted me to this, other than my love of antiques and memories of my grandfather pulling a tabletop set out in his backyard with an extension cord and antenna to watch a ballgame in the summer time.

Plus there is a great satisfaction in learning this stuff, doing the work and actually getting results. I started with a few radios and have had immense help from folks on this forum. Have not completely restored a TV by myself yet, but I am getting there.

Hope the prices do not go up TOO high for working parts, but understand if they do.

I too am on the younger side of radio/TV collectors (46), but I've been in the hobby avidly since about 1980. Recently I've noticed that many sets, as well as early CRT's and other various parts are suddenly becoming rather scarce. In, say the '90's, it seemed there was an over-abundance of everything! Certain serious collectors had stacks of sets stored away. Of course it's bound to happen that the supply dries-up as time goes on. It just gets a little more expensive and requires a little more searching around to get something.
Good luck with your resto work. I still am timid with elec. repairs. I give it to my tech.
Joe

I too am on the younger side of radio/TV collectors (46), but I've been in the hobby avidly since about 1980. Recently I've noticed that many sets, as well as early CRT's and other various parts are suddenly becoming rather scarce. In, say the '90's, it seemed there was an over-abundance of everything! Certain serious collectors had stacks of sets stored away. Of course it's bound to happen that the supply dries-up as time goes on. It just gets a little more expensive and requires a little more searching around to get something.
Good luck with your resto work. I still am timid with elec. repairs. I give it to my tech.
Joe

You guys are making me feel way out of place, haha. I'm only 24.

Something to think about, if my 10bp4 sold for $265. What would my good 3kp4 sell for? Just something to think about.

Something to think about, if my 10bp4 sold for $265. What would my good 3kp4 sell for? Just something to think about.

Depends on who's there! I bought my whole Pilot TV-37 with
first rate 3kp4 for $45.

They thought it was a radio. There was another bidder, but he
was a generalist, not a radio-TV specialist.

Doug McDonald

Depends on who's there! I bought my whole Pilot TV-37 with
first rate 3kp4 for $45.

They thought it was a radio. There was another bidder, but he
was a generalist, not a radio-TV specialist.

Doug McDonald

Does "Lucky Dog" sound right? Good on 'ya Mate!

A few scarce tubes will indeed get very expensive. But honestly I think there is no way that 10BP4s will ever be rightfully called scarce. I bet the same day this particular tested tube sold for so much, several sets containing good 10BP4s got no bids and ended up in the dumpster somewhere. There are still far more vintage sets out there than there are collectors to buy them. CRT salvage from beat-up sets can be a good choice.

And to think that I passed on one at our local club auction that went for $5.00... with the yoke attached!

I paid $120 for a 10BP4 including a 12LP4 about 2 years ago.
The Ebayer who sold me a Zenith Porthole offered them to me
when I went to pick up the TV.
Still have them in case I have a future project.
I think CRTs will tend to trend upward in price with a lot of fluxuations
where there will be some great deals along with some outrageous prices.

Carl

Really ?!? Hawkeye was charging $300. I can't imagine how VDC could do it for only $39. It involves so much time and labor not to mention the cost of the new gun.

...And I thought $39 was high, considering I used to get them done for $16.95 at Dunbar in West Los Angeles in the 80s (color tubes were $39.50). I know it's all about supply & demand, and obviously the supply was great when there was a CRT oven in the back of half of the small TV repair shops. And now by context, I guess they don't make that gun anymore, so it would have to be re-cathoded. That would explain the $300 for Hawkeye, although I hadn't personally used them.

There really isn't that much time & labor involved at all. I've personally rebuilt a 10BP4 under supervision at Dunbar, and it's about 20 minutes total labor, and the rest of the time is oven time and vacuum pulldown time. You hotwire a tiny hole in the side of the neck, let the air in, then use a hot snare wire to crack the neck and old gun off. Then you weld an extension onto the neck, and cut it to proper length, then weld the new gun onto the neck. Stick it in the oven and hook up the vacuum line, and at the end of the day, you pinch off the vacuum nipple, thread the base on, and watch TV! Of course that's if you're a seasoned pro, which I'm not... But I don't see why anyone couldn't be taught easily and quickly.


I guess I'm just getting old, and time is going by faster :thumbsdn:

Charles

What I really meant my time was time tying up the oven. You could probably only do a couple CRTs a day with a single oven.

Back in the late 70's early 80's we used to buy rebuilt color CRT's in the 30-40 dollar range all the time from Hurleys.
They weren't the best quality, the corners usually had some dead pixels from dirt that got in the tube during rebuilding but they worked.

Pick up a Roundy set at a yard sale for $5 (that was common then), throw in a $30 CRT and a few small tubes (usually all the 6GH8's @$1 each), clean the tuner and controls and sell it for $200, those were the days. :thmbsp:

Eric/Charles,

Any knowledge of Calvideo? I have a pair of their metal-cone 21's I'm afraid to look at due to storage time.

Eric/Charles,

Any knowledge of Calvideo? I have a pair of their metal-cone 21's I'm afraid to look at due to storage time.

I have a couple of their tubes, one is a like new 10BP4 in an 8TS30, the other is a 12LP4 that's been rejuvenated I think.

Edit, just retested the 10BP4 and emissions and cutoff are great but it shows a little bit of G1 leakage, about 11 volts and the scale on the tester says about 5 is acceptable, I'm guessing it'll still work ok though, could be some conductivity in the base glue too.

Eric/Charles,

Any knowledge of Calvideo? I have a pair of their metal-cone 21's I'm afraid to look at due to storage time.

I've heard of them, but never formed an opinion. In the Los Angeles area, we had two major rebuilders; Dunbar and Pacific Vacuum. There were also a few midsized rebuilders such as West Coast TV in Culver City (3 or 4 ovens), and MetroColor in San Gabriel (a dozen or more ovens). The only one still in business today, is MetroColor...... Same owners, but it's now a cat boarding hotel, and the ovens have been converted to cat cages! They sold all the rest of the CRT rebuilding stuff to a company in Mexico in the early 2000s. I got a few NOS military 21" roundie color tubes from them, which are great. HR19VGUP22, if I recall. The military was still using 21FJ-type tubes for certain special applications at least until then, if not still today, I guess.

Charles

Wow! Perhaps I should keep my RCA 8T-243, or at least the 10BP4! I was thinking about scrapping it and saving key parts for my much nicer looking and working TC-127. Really I would like to find someone in driving distance to take the 243 and finish restoring it. I'm just not a fan of "roundies" with rectangular masks and plain jane cabinets.

They sold all the rest of the CRT rebuilding stuff to a company in Mexico in the early 2000s.
Charles

Which begs the question if there's still any potential for getting CRT's rebuilt in Mexico? I don't think they have a whole lot of internet access, so it may be a little difficult to research.

Which begs the question if there's still any potential for getting CRT's rebuilt in Mexico? I don't think they have a whole lot of internet access, so it may be a little difficult to research.

I've heard that there are plenty of CRT rebuilders down there, and in fact, Ronnie Richardson (co-owner of Dunbar), went down there as part of his sellout deal to set up and train the new owners. That, of course, was at least 15 or 20 years ago, but I bet there are still lots and lots of CRT TVs being used and fixed there. MetroColor's equipment was sold to Mexico much later, so if there were still upstart CRT rebuilders as late as the 2000s, it's a good sign. I remember being in Tijuana in the early 1980s, and basically there were 1940s-50s black & white sets in use still, and I didn't even see any color sets. Even in restaurants and tourist-type places. The tour bus company had a mid-50s Magnavox 17" consolette in the tourist lounge.

So I'd bet there are lots of 1980s-90s TVs being repaired on a daily basis, and thus the demand for cheap rebuilt tubes.

Charles

Like with most things in our hobby, the prices are going to be all over the place. After seeing a 10BP4 sell for $150 on ebay maybe 6 months ago I listed one of my spares, but could only garner about half that. These were the most common b/w crt, right? The majority of the ones I've had were, if not super strong, at least very useable. There are lots of 10" sets that aren't worth $100 as a complete package. I parted out a Raytheon with a rough cabinet-it was worth more in parts than as a complete set.

This hobby will change. At some point, way in the future, you won't have trouble getting $500 for a 10BP4. Way in the future, I said!

Well, I'm glad I scrounged up discarded 10" sets from the curb on trash day years ago for salvageable CRTs, and glad I picked up a few NOS 10BP4s at estate sales for a couple of bucks apiece (again, many years ago.) I was accused of being (and wondered if I wasn't actually) a little nuts for storing away such "common" tubes, but I like collecting this stuff and it just made me feel better to have them.

I feel a lot better about it now.

And it doesn't make sense to me that used tubes go for good money, but unrestorable (and even restorable) sets with a likely good 10BP4 inside can't elicit even a dollar bid sometimes at club auctions.

At our July club swapmeet, I heard that after I left someone who had been trying unsuccessfully to sell an ugly, never-going-to-be-worth-restoring set with a weak-but-useable 10BP4 in it, smashed the set and smashed the CRT into the dumpster when he left.

Wow! Perhaps I should keep my RCA 8T-243, or at least the 10BP4! I was thinking about scrapping it and saving key parts for my much nicer looking and working TC-127. Really I would like to find someone in driving distance to take the 243 and finish restoring it. I'm just not a fan of "roundies" with rectangular masks and plain jane cabinets.

Speaking of my TC-127; it has a 12" tube. I think it is a 12LP4. Does anyone know how hard to find they are being from more or less the same time frame? It sure makes one crisp and bright picture!

The 12 inch tubes are getting quite a bit harder to find than the 10 inch tubes. The last good "loose" 12LP4 I found cost me $75. I suppose you could always pull one from a junker set though for quite a bit less.

I also very recently paid $75 for a good loose 12LP4. Conversely, today I was given a complete Admiral 30B1 chassis with a good 10BP4 dated 1956 :)

And it doesn't make sense to me that used tubes go for good money, but unrestorable (and even restorable) sets with a likely good 10BP4 inside can't elicit even a dollar bid sometimes at club auctions.

At our July club swapmeet, I heard that after I left someone who had been trying unsuccessfully to sell an ugly, never-going-to-be-worth-restoring set with a weak-but-useable 10BP4 in it, smashed the set and smashed the CRT into the dumpster when he left.

Say it ain't so Dave:no:

The 12 inch tubes are getting quite a bit harder to find than the 10 inch tubes. The last good "loose" 12LP4 I found cost me $75

I sort of suspected this because I figured that there simply were more 10" tubes out there. Reasoning is that the 10" tubes were sort of a common thing for a fair amount of years. I think that once they more or less perfected the electroinics, they started going for larger size, so you see the 12" and the 19" come along, not to mention the monolithic tubes mounted in DuMont Royal Sovereign sets somewhere around 30".

So you have the years of 10" being popular and just a few years of the larger round tubes, then everything goes to old ugly rectangular shape. Guess I better not put too many hours on my !2"...

Anybody got a really good 10BP4 for sale? :)

I don't have just the tube, but I still have a nice RCA 8T-243 that I would let go of if someone can pick it up (both physically and geographically).

One good thing is that vintage TV's that have made it to this point with a good CRT will very likely never need a replacement - barring accidents. The days of using these sets for hours on end on a daily basis are over for them. My vintage TV's get just enough use to keep them "limber", and I use controlled voltage with a Variac. I am pretty confident I will not need to replace their CRT's any time soon!
I think it's a great time for collectors of vintage TV's and radios. They are old enough to be an appealing collectible, yet still can be made operational often with little trouble of a knowledgeable tech - and the parts can be found somewhat easily. That may not be the case 25-50 years down the road. Their likely will be many static display's or retrofitted electronic substitutions, especially with vintage TV's from the '30-'50's.

I use the snot out of my 9T246. Gets at least 4 or 5 hours a week of use. More in the wintertime.....

I use the snot out of my 9T246. Gets at least 4 or 5 hours a week of use. More in the wintertime.....
That's still not much compared to the 30+ a week of use it might have had in it's day.
I rotate through my collection and don't leave a single set out. They probably all get played about 1 hour per month. It doesn't sound like much, but because I have a sizable collection that's enjoying a set almost every evening. The longest I've had a set playing is about 1 1/2 hours. If I had the ability to do repair work myself I would probably be a little more lax about it.

I think TV set usage habits have changed a lot since the early days. Really since the 70s and before 24 hours and 200 channels became the norm. Before that Mom watched a soap or three before the kids got home. Then the kids watched and hour or two of cartoons after school. Then dad watched the evening news, and finally the family watched whatever was interesting on prime time. All of this on about 4 channels for most people.

Now, sometimes my never say die Magnavox from the 90s stays on around the clock since the woman and I work opposing shifts. Sometimes there is an hour or two that I could turn it off just before she gets up, but I leave it on as I believe that it is harder on the CRT and other components to shut down and cool off just to get heated right back up. I love the really old TVs, but I must say that I have been amazed more than once at the durability of sets particularly from the 80s-90s. After that they seemed to turn into the garbage that they are today.

I think what happened is that the engineers by that time had worked to perfect solid state technology and color C.R.T. technology as well, and thus it was marketed. Then later the inevitable planned obsolescence or rather breakage tactics cam into play to keep people spending money. This is common with most everything now and it is such a shame, but if things don't break, then there certainly are less sales of replacements.

I am brand new to the hobby and on the young side (40). I am really only interested in getting the sets I collect to work. Not really sure what attracted me to this, other than my love of antiques and memories of my grandfather pulling a tabletop set out in his backyard with an extension cord and antenna to watch a ballgame in the summer time.

Plus there is a great satisfaction in learning this stuff, doing the work and actually getting results. I started with a few radios and have had immense help from folks on this forum. Have not completely restored a TV by myself yet, but I am getting there.

Hope the prices do not go up TOO high for working parts, but understand if they do.
It's a genetic mental illness.

Nah, he caught this one from me :D

Now I see 10bp4's are back to a better price. I think the guy who bid $265 just needed the tube for grand ma's set.


http://www.ebay.com/itm/10BP4-Picture-tube-CRT-Tests-strong-/251335159723?_trksid=p2047675.l2557&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEWAX%3AIT&nma=true&si=%252BP7CwG8PEsodyny%252BBKl3LS8RA6g%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

Now I see 10bp4's are back to a better price.

A better price for the buyer. I'm a 33 year old with a wife and 4 kids going back to school full time and working part time. I was hoping for the trend to stay the same for a little while.:tears:

Check out the bidding history on this one. That has got to be some shill action!
http://r.ebay.com/3ms3YP