gibosi
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2012
- Posts
- 6,420
- Likes
- 4,791
Having fun combing through the eBay bargain bins for ugly little black metal tubes in the 6C5 and 6J5 families. Some of them are rusty or the black paint is flaking off here and there. If you buy them in small lots the cost usually is less than $2-3 each shipped.
As bad as these tubes look, that's how good they sound. I would not be surprised if I end up liking these better than their straight glass and Shoulder Type glass counterparts.
Here is an example of an unrestored Sylvania 6J5 tube. It must be quite old because it has the flashing S symbol on a green oak leaf.
Not sure how to date it - S I probably doesn't mean Staten Island, NYC since I don't think they had a factory there. Some tubes used the word O-P-U-S to designate the quarter of the year. S would then mean the 4th quarter.
"I" could mean 1951 - not sure of these assumptions.
On the other hand there are clearly the letters DL printed on the tube. Cannot find any chart that has those letters - maybe this tube came from DL's (Decent Levi) collection, but how did it end up in Council Bluffs, IA, where the seller resides?
You have to give credit to these tubes - they do not need too much packing material - the lot of six tubes was shipped together in a plastic sandwich bag packed inside a thin breakfast crackers box with some newspaper wrap.
BTW, the seller states that he has 20,000 tubes sitting in a locker - only a few are listed so far.
Another adventurous tube rolling day .....
Interestingly, "6J5 S1" stamped in the base corresponds to an RCA date code indicating January, 1957. And even more interesting, "DL" in the Sylvania two-letter system indicates November, 1957. So sometime in 1957, but we can't be any more precise. And I wonder... do your ears tell you this is an RCA? Or a Sylvania?