[Tubejunke]

I would lose the VTVMs and get one good Simpson if I had no other. The Eico and the (what appears to be a Heathkit) are nothing special. As a current (i think) nutcase over vintage capacitor testers with "magic eye" tubes, I have a Solar exactly like the wooden/blackface you have. Oddly, mine with perhaps some touch up work in the 60s only works fine as is. I did change the power supply's 8mfds. That's pretty much a given for that well aged a unit.

Your silver face Solar is really neat looking, however it hasn't the charm of the smaller unit with exposed tubes and all. It cool that you chose a C3 as your main stand by. They are great little units and so simply laid out to do what they do. I went overboard on the bay and compiled about 3 of the later gray C3s, then I decided I liked the look of the older brown face/red letter jobs so I got one of those. THEN I decided that the attraction of having a toggle switch, pilot light and neon leakage lamp; so I got one of those. And then I found a Knight RC that has a miswired main rotary wafer switch.

So I know how you feel. What can I get rid of? There is just too much stuff (TVs and radios) laying around needing some sort of repair to be functional AND I have test equipment that needs repair perhaps to fix the other stuff! LOL! Long winded way of saying every tech needs a good meter. So I say keep or find a good VTVM. I truly believe all a man needs is a good 303 Simpson VTVM and a 260 for things like current measurement. Thats it. We can pick up a Jap DMM for a few bucks for what they do. And you need a good leakage capacitor jig or three. I may have to set up an Ebay store to sell my Ebay purchases! KEEP the blackface Solar man!