This Could be Interesting

[pwdrive]

No undue comments please as this auction is still in progress:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Complete-SOE-WWII-Radio-suit-case-radio-SAS-MI6-close-to-Bletchley-Park-/251192507526?pt=UK_Collectables_Militaria_LE&hash=item3a7c3d7c86

If the description is as read then it should do well.

Lawrence.

[Yorkie]

I had a set of those coils some years ago and didn't know what they were. As they were of no use to me, I binned them. Oh Dear.

Makes you realise how far electronics has progressed when you see how primitive and cumbersome these sets were, even though they were for portable use.

Really not much more than a homebrew QRP rig, but quite adequate for the job in hand.

Back in the early 70s I was secretary of the Grimsby Amateur Radio Club and we had a stand at an exhibition called 'Hobbies for All' (back then, people still had hobbies - not fleeting 'pastimes'). I'd made a little Morse oascillator for people to dabble with, and an elderly lady stopped at the stand and sent perfect CW at about 20WPM with it. She said 'I'm a bit rusty, but you never forget it do you?' She went on to explain that she'd been in the SOE, parachuted into France. Didn't get captured - wasn't scared except for the parachute jump. She'd been given a cyanide pill in the event of capture, but said she chucked it away, remarking that the object of war was that if you died, it was at the hands of the enemy - not your own.


It will be interesting to see the outcome of the auction.

[pwdrive]

Hello David, one of them recently went for around 2k I seem to remember, they ceratainly fetch good money if all the accessories are with them, that one at auction seems to have the provenance so it could fetch top dollar, we shall see. By the way I forgot most of the morse that I learned years ago, I recently tried again but to no avail, oh dear...

Lawrence.

[Yorkie]

Hello David, one of them recently went for around 2k I seem to remember, they ceratainly fetch good money if all the accessories are with them, that one at auction seems to have the provenance so it could fetch top dollar, we shall see.

Lawrence.

Top dollar indeed Lawrence!

The auction has finished - I glanced at it when e-bay warned me that the auction was coming to an end and I might lose out!

It was at £2,540 a few minutes before the end, and the final bid was for £4,465.

The succesful bidder will have been 'congratulated' on 'winning' the item. No - they didn't 'win it' they 'bought it' by paying the highest price for the item that anyone was prepared to pay at the close of the auction. I could have 'won it' if I'd wanted to - just stick £10k in - the chances of anyone topping that are quite remote I think. Best place for it would be the Imperial War Museum where it can be seen by thousands of visitors, rather than stuck on someone's shelf to gather dust, simply because of pride of ownership.

[AlanBeckett]

A few years ago SWMBO bid £330,000 in the last couple of minutes on a Horsebox - she missed the Decimal point. She was on the phone to me at the time. 'Well', I said, 'you're pretty certain to get it'
She did, for £3,300, which is what she intended. However, it was just as well no-one else made the same mistake.

Alan

[Joe]

It's not just buyers who seem to do it:-

   

I've heard of Audiophools but...

- Joe

[Skywave]

Hmm, yes Joe, so I see . . . . but it appears that quite a number of them have been sold . . .

Al.

[tiv48]

no Audiophools would buy cheap tat like that

[Yorkie]

In a cheerless world, what a great forum this is, where we don't take ourselves too seriously and can have a chuckle and engage in informal banter on otherwise dismal winter days, without someone who has had their sense of humour surgically removed swooping down on us like an avenging angel and killing the thread! It isn't that I've not got things that need attention - I just don't want to do stuff outdoors when the weather is miserable, but that doesn't mean that I have to be miserable too, so I've got my happy face on

Night night.