For Auction: train stuff

Hi all
just wanted to let you know I have a few things on eBay....... don't imagine the gramophone or radio will be of any interest, but some of the train bits might be...... for anyone not in Australia, paypal is fine and our postage costs are the lowest in the developed world.
http://search.ebay.com.au/_W0QQsassZseriphQQhtZ-1

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Steve, as someone who used to fix them, what makes you think an old radio has any value at all?
(kim)

only selling them for many thousands of dollars over the years - albeit not this model which I am selling on behalf of our local Op Shop
:)
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It must be an Australian thing. You'd have to pay someone to cart it away over here.
(kim)

could be ...... though different things have cyclical value I have found..... once upon a time my dad paid a bloke 3 shillings to come and take the family's radiogram and gramophone away in a truck. I bought, then sold that same model gramophone in the 1990's - a HMV Library Grand. Got $2300 at auction for it.
But radiograms - now that's another story altogether, but retro has taken Australia by storm so who knows
I just know I will never be into them
:)
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"mindesign" wrote
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Me neither, but there are some wonderful things around from the 60s and earlier.
Now talking radios I'd love to get my hands on the bloody great thing my grandparents had in the 1950s - it was a piece of furniture in itself, and as a kid I loved twiddling the knobs to try and receive exotic stations such as Hilversum and Berlin, the names of which appeared on the tuning panel.
John.

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There's no point. It won't work. It will never work. There's nothing you can buy for it that will ever make it work.
(kim)

"kim" wrote
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That's not the point, it would look nice! :-)
John.

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My grandad used to design them so if there's enough interest out there we'll put them back into production but they won't be cheap.
(kim)

"kim" wrote
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Just out of interest Kim, why would such a radi receiver no longer work? Have they changed the way radio is broadcast?
John.

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Of course they can be made to work, a lot of people refurbish old valve radios. The main problem is sourcing valves that are now obsolete, (not all are by the way).
Regards Jeff

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It isn't just the valves it's output transformers, high voltage capacitors and slow-motion dials which require a wiring diagram of their own. Even back in 1970 I was having to cannibalize parts from other appliances to keep radios running.
(kim)

"> It isn't just the valves it's output transformers, high voltage capacitors
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Despite the problems there are a lot of people who DO refurbish old radios as a hobby.
Regards Jeff

ummmm in '93 I sold my collection of fully functional radios
43 in all - earliest was from the 30's and worked
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On Tue, 4 Oct 2005 07:02:33 +1000, "mindesign"
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You can use modern solid state innards of course, although gearing the dial is tricky. I was a radio officer at sea for many years, working often right at the cutting edge of obsolescence (magneto striction resonators, ah me) - We had a lot of old kit that remained in use up to the mid 1980s when rules on frequency drift changed. The Dwarka pilgrim ship that ran up the Gulf (used for the film Ghandi) had a receiver with three holes in the front panel so you could see if the elements in the valves were lit. After WW2 there were lots of old military bits about, the standard battery change over switch Marconi used was formerly the bomb bay door control knob for the Wellington bomber. Mate of mine has a collection of truly ancient telephones into which he is fitting modern innards so they can be used with tone dial only exchanges and the like. Not sure why exactly, they look interesting but the only one that is useful is an old thing with a support on the handset to jam it on your shoulder. The candlestic types are NBG if you have to write anything down.
Regards
Mike

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I think I've seen him on TV?. They're hugely popular.
(kim)

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Not on TV AFAIK although there is a chap in Sale (south of Manchester) who I think still refurbishes old car radios that Ian used to drop in to chat with.

snipped-for-privacy@notigg.not.no writes
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How did Ian manage to chat to those old car radios? :-)

they look bloody nice though
:)
I heard of someone here in Australia who was putting a converter inline so all you did was use the dial and it converted the pulses into tones.
funky idea
Steve
wrote:
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Not as easy as you might think. The original speakers were high impedance and transformer-coupled. Modern output stages are low impedance and direct-coupled. Our radio had separate speakers for treble and bass (16 and 32 ohm I think) coupled via an elaborate arrangement of twin transfromers each of which was custom wound.
And if anyone is thinking of replacing the speaker, I once measured 240 volts AC from the screws holding the speaker in place on an old Sobell. The neutral wire had become detached so the live was looking for the shortest route to earth which in this case was the screws holding the speaker in place and anyone unfortunate enough to touch one of them.
(kim)