Has the DAC90A bubble burst?

[pwdrive]

Hello Andy I have bid on BC348 manuals in the past, the last one I was out bid on I think went for arround £22, as you say getting hard to come by now at least you can see a decent layout/schematic instead of those copies of copies of copies....
I have a BC348 in good original condition but no original manual yet...One day maybe...

Lawrence.

[Andy M0FYA]

Lawrence,
There are some really excellent high-resolution scans of various BC348 manuals here -
http://www.jamminpower.com/main/bc348.html

But be aware that you need a good internet connection, the files are ginormous!

Andy

[pwdrive]

Phew....they are large, thanks Andy, good site.

Lawrence.

[Andy M0FYA]

Phew....they are large, thanks Andy, good site.

Lawrence.

I think the problem is that all the pages have been scanned at high resolution resulting in the photographs and diagrams being as good as the original documents, but it's not really necessary for pages of text. Well worth the time taken to download, though.

Andy

[pwdrive]

Thanks Andy.

Lawrence.

[Yorkie]

Having been watching a few items on e-bay out of cusiosity (with no intention of buying, but to get a feel of things with a view to thinning out my own collection), the more I see of it, the more I'm convinced that the market has gone flat. Several sets have recently been re-listed including cream and brown DAC90As which have had no bids. The era of ludicrously high prices being attained for such a commonplace set seems to be a thing of the past.

I was very surprised though to see this once sought after Bakelite pre-war Murphy SAD94L unsold with no bids, even at the low starting price of a fiver:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/180909274578?s...K:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649

This, I am less surprised about. It has one of the less attractive of several dials in my view, but then I'm not a fan of DAC90As, so I'm a tad biased:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230816448365&ssPageName=ADME:B:WNARL:GB:1123

[Robert Darwent]

Hi David,

I believe that SAD94L actually had several bids but was ended early by the seller. I own one myself and I was watching it too to see what price it would fetch.

Another SAD94L ended the day before and sold for its opening bid of £75 by the way.

Regards

[Yorkie]

Hi David,

I believe that SAD94L actually had several bids but was ended early by the seller. I own one myself and I was watching it too to see what price it would fetch.

Another SAD94L ended the day before and sold for its opening bid of £75 by the way.

Regards

Ah, that solves that mystery then Robert.

I'm a bit naive about the machinations of e-bay, at this stage only ever having bought stuff. I guess a lot of wheeling and dealing & ducking and diving takes place behind the scenes to circumvent the process. If someone says for example, 'Are you open to a buy now offer - I live nearby, I could come today and offer you £xxx, pay cash and take it away?' and makes a sensible offer, the listing may be ended and it's game over for any 'lurkers and snipers' who leave it to the last few seconds before showing their hand.

(Not saying that's what happened in this case of course - just generalising).

I guess you must have seen the not very good Ekco AD75 (I think) with a non-original back that's just gone for £280. Just the sort of set than demands your attention Robert!

[Robert Darwent]

Hi David,

I guess you must have seen the not very good Ekco AD75 (I think) with a non-original back that's just gone for £280. Just the sort of set than demands your attention Robert!

Yes I saw that one and was tempted, but as I have one of those resisted bidding. If it had been the AD36 model though, then I would have definitely been in the running at that price range.

I've been keeping an eye on the prices vintage radios fetch on-line for a few years now, especially the 'round' Ekco's, and I agree with a couple of your comments I've quoted below;

I know how fickle e-bay can be, even from one day to the next

There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it

It pretty much seems to be a lottery as to whether a particular listing takes off or not. To illustrate with some examples of the Ekco AD75 you mentioned, take a look at these three;

           

They all look to be in the same sort of condition. Why one fetches roughly five times the price of either of the other two is beyond me!

In the same vein, take a look at this listing;

   

Although outwardly the set looks reasonable, the chassis has been stripped of most of the large components; dropper, ift's, speaker, valves, etc. So essentially the listing is for virtually an empty case, which was clearly shown in the pictures. And yet there were three people placing bids of over £1200 at the very end!

Even allowing for the fact that the model is the black and chrome version, which usually fetches a higher price, I still can't understand the reason behind the bidding frenzy. To me it was worth £250 maximum as the basis of reproduction chassis project, which is why it caught my eye originally.

As a sort of comparison, below is a listing of the related black and chrome Ekco AD76 model which fetched a more realistic price. More importantly, this set was complete and if anything sold for somewhat less than it was actually worth in my opinion.

   

Regards

[Yorkie]

Goodness gracious £2.5k, and £1.2k for a virtually empty cabinet. I bet the sellers were ecstatic! I doubt that whoever bought it - apart from yourself Robert, and maybe two or three others - would be able to make anything of it unless they have all of the bits that were missing. A while back I was going to bid on a 'barebones' A22 - in working order, with everything there except the cabinet, dial, back and knobs, intending to make a cabinet by either layers of thin ply, steamed, rolled and glued, fitted to a front turned on the lathe, or from rings of 25 mm MDF glued together and turned on the lathe. In the end, I hadn't put it on my watch list, didn't bid, and later found that it had sold for just £67.00. It soon became clear who'd bought it as he issued a wanted request on another forum for all the missing bits! Don't know if he had any success, but at £67.00 it was a gift. (No-one on here BTW).

I've reached a stage in life at which if I really wanted to spend £2.5k on a radio I could do, but for me - however intrinsically appealing the set is - the high price tag causes them to lose their appeal, because I don't covet things as a collector for their rarity value - I just like restoring old radios as best I'm able - not as an investment or speculative venture, but as a hobby. I've long since passed the stage at which I allow nostalgia to triumph over common sense, and have learnt to temper my enthusiasm with discretion. Buy in haste - repent at leisure! In marketing terms, it's known as 'cognitive dissonance' - an uncomfortable post-purchase feeling that you've been 'had'.

Unfortunately, sets often fall into the hands of so called 'restorers' who have delusions of adequacy. The Ekco AC86 isn't at the top end of the classic Ekcos price-wise, but it's a set worth restoring competently and for it to be in a better shape then when one acquired it. The older a set is, arguably the more we should try to conserve what's there, and when we have to replace components, to try to do so in a tidy fashion. Consider then, the work completed on this AC86 featured below, which I became aware of. Haven't got the right value resistor? No probs - string nine together in a daisy chain - sorted! Note the 'smoothers' in pic 4. It ought to be a crime - 'cruelty to radios' or some such thing.