Red and yellow Mullard vintage caps with cult following- are they reliable now?

[Al (astral highway)]

Hi there,

Can't remember the name of these but they have a cult following for wah-wah pedals etc. They're distinctive yellow and red, I seem to remember. Are they polyester? And how reliable if new old stock? (NOS). I have a number in a large collection given to me by a former enthusiast.

Thank you

[paulsherwin]

The valuable Mullard 'mustard' caps are mustard yellow, hence the name, and are polyester. They don't deteriorate. If I were you I would sell these on eBay, as they fetch high prices and are no better than any modern plastic film cap.

If yours have red bits on them, post a picure here so we can identify them.

[Nickthedentist]

Yes, yellow and red sounds odd.

You're not thinking of the Plessey electrolytics, are you?

The valuable Mullard 'mustard' caps are mustard yellow, hence the name, and are polyester. They don't deteriorate. If I were you I would sell these on eBay, as they fetch high prices and are no better than any modern plastic film cap.

I can see a spate of swapping out mustards for (may be better) modern yellow polyesters to make a profit. They seem to go for about a pound or two a piece on ebay (some are lots more), new ones 50p.

[MrBungle]

You can get more cash selling as a lot.

WIMA TFM are the ones people seem to go mental over. I got a bag of about 500 of them at a radio fair in the 1990s for £1. It sat around until about 2 years ago at which point it paid the shopping bill for a family of 5 for a month! Insane.

You can get really really excellent capacitors for virtually nothing these days.

I'm wondering if there is a market for putting these inside replica mustard packages (honestly that is!)

[Al (astral highway)]

Hi there folks,

I can't post a photo right now and they're actually multicoloured! The leads are neither axial nor radial as the caps are lozenge-shaped. The colour-coding is in horizontal banding and highly-saturated colours. The collector was mostly active in the 70s and 80s, and these are new old stock. Sorry about the photo but my Iphone lead is corrupted and won't be recognised by my Mac.

[ms660]

Tropical fish.

Lawrence.

[TonyDuell]

You're not thinking of the Mullard C280 series are you? We used to call them 'Licorice Allsorts' for obvious reasons.

[paulsherwin]

That's what I was thinking. I think they were the next generation after the mustards. They are completely standard polyester caps from the early 70s. Again, sell them and buy some new ones from CPC with some of the proceeds.

http://www.petervis.com/electronics/...lour-code.html

[G8HQP Dave]

Weren't 'tropical fish' and 'mustard' caps both available at the same time, in the late 60's/early 70's? For some reason 'mustards' are more popular nowadays, but other types are just as good and usually cheaper.

I can understand why someone might think that 'tropical fish' are predominantly red and yellow, but the whole rainbow is present. One peculiarity of these is that there are no gaps between the bands.

[Ed_Dinning]

Hi Gents, the "allsorts" were most often available in up to 250v versions. Although there were 400v versions they are much rarer.

Ed

[vidjoman]

The allsorts have different leads that are more suited to PCBs and the mustards for point to point wiring.

[cmjones01]

And the 'tropical fish' are annoyingly prone to the legs breaking off. Pretty, though!

Chris

[Al (astral highway)]

Originally Posted by pwdrive

Tropical fish.

Yesss!! That's the fellas!

Originally Posted by vidjoman

The allsorts have different leads that are more suited to PCBs...

Yes, it's definitely these guys!

Originally Posted by paulsherwin

Again, sell them and buy some new ones from CPC with some of the proceeds.

Thanks, Paul... good tip. Then again, I might just keep them as curios, since they form part of a wonderful assorted collection of all sorts of things. Let's see.

[julie_m]

I thought the "Tropical Fish" or "Liquorice Allsort" capacitors were just the early incarnation of what later became plain orange resin-dipped polyester capacitors, with a conventional printed value; the actual capacitor structure inside remaining unchanged, and the colour banding just being easier and cheaper to apply at the time than printing a value.

Red-red-yellow, with the red bands merging into one broad red band, would signify 224 = 220 000e-12 = 220e-9 = 220 nF, certainly a common enough value.

I remember blowing up a few of the orange capacitors, when they were still branded Philips. They contained two polyester film strips, metallised for all but a few millimetres of their width, rolled up and squashed flat; with the metallised portions overlapping into the centre and metallic powder compressed into the ends and around the leads, so as to make contact with only one "plate".

A similar construction omitting the flattening step would yield a more-easily-labelled, double-ended tubular capacitor suitable for hand-wiring.

[Restoration73]

There should be a thin colour band at the lead out indicating voltage, black = 100V,
red = 250, yellow = 400, all DC of course. Where there is a risk of damage it is
possible to use clear heat shrink. I have also seen them with an overall mustard finish
with the value printed on,typically 630V. Some of the best Mullard/Philips caps were axial with a rectangular yellow moulded case, although I think 250V was the maximum.

[Stylo N M]

Hi,

what is it that makes the mullard mustard so indistructable? even when they have had a good baking from the valves, they still seem to be ok.

paul.

[AC/HL]

I'm not sure that they're any better than modern types. Their fame stems from their early introduction amongst contemporary paper or mixed types, where they really did stand out. It's down to the dielectric, not yellow paint!
To what extent Mullard were lucky in adopting polywhatever when they did, or whether it was down to research, I've no idea, but it certainly created a legend.

[paulsherwin]

All the big boys had switched to polyester caps by that time. The stripey Mullard ones are sought after because they were used in lots of British musical equipment at a time when lots of classic rock albums were being recorded. People will pay big bucks for reproduction effects pedals etc, but only if they really are true physical reproductions built with the correct period components. If they were built with modern polyester caps they wouldn't sound the same - obvious innit

[Stylo N M]

Thanks Bill, thanks Paul, but i always thought that those C280 types weren't that reliable anyway, due to the capsule splitting down the sides.
Paul.