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Old 21st Dec 2016, 11:48 pm   #1
Cobaltblue
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Default Test your Valves Regularly

I quickly pulled the back off one of my unrestored DAC90's for a picy.

I noticed this label.

I have tried to enhance it the yellow has faded badly and can barely be seen on the actual label.

I have often heard tales that valve sales were a good part of the business for many Radio and TV shops.

This is the first time I have ever noticed a label such as this one though.

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Mike T
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Old 22nd Dec 2016, 12:25 am   #2
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Default Re: Test your Valves Regularly

The opening line on the label should have continued ".... on our special, rep-supplied valve tester with unusually broad "fail" sector. Thus, our profits are guaranteed into the forseeable future and, furthermore, urban wisdom about "short-lived" valves will pass down through the generations and handsomely reward those selling surviving valve-testers for many decades".
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Old 22nd Dec 2016, 1:59 am   #3
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Default Re: Test your Valves Regularly

As above. The fact that this is a dealer label rather than a manufacturer one says it all. I expect many people fell for it at the time.
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Old 22nd Dec 2016, 10:07 am   #4
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Default Re: Test your Valves Regularly

"I've brought in a picture valve, can you test it for me?"

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Old 22nd Dec 2016, 10:38 am   #5
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Default Re: Test your Valves Regularly

While I don't believe in " testing valves regularly ", they did fail. We did sell valves, not many if someone came and asked for one, we had no tester, they were told that the valve could have failed due to age or been damaged by other parts of the set.
The few we sold were usually to customers who realised this and knew what they were doing, they had the skills to fix the set. Very often it would make a sale of set in tbe future with these customers.
There are scams with everything, I don't believe the TV trade was any worse or better than others.
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Old 22nd Dec 2016, 11:00 am   #6
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Default Re: Test your Valves Regularly

It reminds me of my TV repair days. The advice from above when 'the man in the street' came in for components was to double the price which we had paid and add a little. This practice did give me a very suspicious mind and when I get chance I usually check the going rate before I buy these days.
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Old 22nd Dec 2016, 11:28 am   #7
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Default Re: Test your Valves Regularly

Retail price = 2x wholesale price is not unusual. The man in the street was paying you to stock it for him, or paying you to specially order it for him.
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Old 22nd Dec 2016, 11:32 am   #8
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Default Re: Test your Valves Regularly

Valves, like cartridge stylii last much longer than punters believe. A small signal valve such as an ECC81/2/3 will last typically 7000 to 10,000 hours - or about a year if run continuously. Power valves like a KT88 last less long, and it depends on how hard they are run and used, but 2,000 to 3,000 hours is typical (and you can monitor status by looking at screen current). Note how many Quad II power amps are still fitted with the original valves, and work just fine.

This rule of thumb may be different in TV's, particularly since they were switched on for long periods most days.
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Old 22nd Dec 2016, 11:41 am   #9
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Default Re: Test your Valves Regularly

In the "good old days" retail markup was approximately 25%. Also as the purchase tax had to be stated the wholesale price could easily be worked out thus, much to their dismay, a retailer's gross profit could accurately be calculated.
Now with retailers happily giving over 50% discount one wonders what the normal retail markup is. After all, they aren't making a loss by giving their 50% and if you want to get some idea of high street overheads just look at the price of ladies' hairdressing compared by the cost of the travelling hairdresser.

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Old 22nd Dec 2016, 12:23 pm   #10
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Default Re: Test your Valves Regularly

I worked for an auto electrical firm for 23.5 years, repairing car radios & stereos. The mark up for spare parts depended on where they came from, but it was usually 50% over cost, though the retail price for Blaupunkt spares was fro some reason Cost divided by 0.45 or abour 2.2 x cost. This led to some strange anomalies in later years when different companies sourced things from the same Japanese makers, e.g. a take-up spool for the TN303 cassette deck, used in many makes of car stereo retailed at (say) £5.56 as a Blaupunkt part, but only £3.75 if sourced from Radiomobile or Clarion (assuming the same cost price from all three firms), so there was a 48.2666% mark up for the identical item if a Blaupunkt supplied part was used, compared to the retail price from the other two firms. I've long forgotten, if I ever knew, the reason for this difference.
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Old 22nd Dec 2016, 12:36 pm   #11
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Default Re: Test your Valves Regularly

Off topic posts relating to boiler servicing deleted.
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Old 22nd Dec 2016, 1:03 pm   #12
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Default Re: Test your Valves Regularly

It is still very common for spare parts to be advertised by an OEM for 2x the buying-in price.

Another practice was to use a "45% margin" and sell at (cost x 1/0.45) or a 2.22 x markup.

This is intended to cover the overhead costs of maintaining a spares stock, plus a profit on the sale.

In both cases there is sufficient margin for an intermediary (dealer or distributor, or service company) to be given an appropriate discount.

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Old 22nd Dec 2016, 2:00 pm   #13
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Default Re: Test your Valves Regularly

Annual valve testing seems to have been encouraged by the BBC. Here's a scan of a Mullard leaflet quoting BBC advice that exhorts users, not only to have their valves tested regularly, but also to have their radio's alignment checked. It's undated, but probably 1951 or 1952 going by the printer's code.

Twice the wholesale price plus purchase tax seemed to be the norm for photographic goods in the early 1970's. I once queried the cost of a replacement bulb for my slide projector, and the rather junior assistant showed me the wholesale price list and explained the basis for setting the retail price. This was shortly before Resale Price Maintenance was abolished, leading to the death of Green Shield stamps and the like.
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Old 22nd Dec 2016, 2:03 pm   #14
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Default Re: Test your Valves Regularly

As Gerry Wells used to state, you took your radio in for repair to the cycle shop or where ever and you said "I think it is a valve" and it always was!
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Old 22nd Dec 2016, 4:26 pm   #15
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Default Re: Test your Valves Regularly

Valves were traditionally the obvious culprit! They did and do fail though, I've replaced my fair share.
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Old 22nd Dec 2016, 6:08 pm   #16
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Default Re: Test your Valves Regularly

The valve was the victim of being a plug-in part, and thereby susceptible to unskilled labour. In the past it was the easiest thing to change, and now it suffers from something akin to wine-tasting.

When a telly went down and it was 'a valve' it was considered repairable, but heaven help you if the man in the shop told you it was 'a transformer'!

David
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Old 22nd Dec 2016, 7:00 pm   #17
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Default Re: Test your Valves Regularly

These days everybody assumes it is a capacitor, so change the lot.
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Old 22nd Dec 2016, 7:08 pm   #18
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Default Re: Test your Valves Regularly

Don't forget the tired old carbon composition resistors
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Old 22nd Dec 2016, 7:30 pm   #19
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Default Re: Test your Valves Regularly

Valve-based kit I designed was never subject to time- or usage-related 'decline'. One client asked "What should be the valve replacement cycle?" I said that there wasn't one. When questioned about this I offered to run a test and - at the client's expense (it was a 'cost-plus' job) - pulled a set of valves that had done 1000-hours of service and airfreighted them back to Eitel-McCulloch in the 'states for assessment.

EIMAC returned them a week later saying they were still within original production specs and why had I sent them in for testing?

I fitted those valves into another amplifier and they went on to do another 45,000 hours.
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Old 22nd Dec 2016, 7:33 pm   #20
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Default Re: Test your Valves Regularly

It might not have been a valve - could have been 'a wire come off', which would, of course, cost nothing to repair!
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