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after all the crap some of you were running about bugleman the tube dealer on ebay, i have still yet to see any of you post negative feedback. what gives? 222 points of positive feedback and NO negative at all.
...because I've bought from him a couple times in the past and always gotten exactly what I bid on. First time 6 Amperex/Mullard Holland 6DJ8's...the real thing. Second time 2 RCA Black Plate 12AX7, square getters...again...the real deal. Third time, a pair of Siemens 7308 gold pins...yet again...the real thing.I will say, however, that I havn't purchased from him in well over a year.
I found Lorenz to be very honest, polite and speedy.
Now I will say that I have seen evidnce of him possibly relabeling some later production Sylvania 6922's as Amperex PQ's, but I saw that the tube in the picture was not what I was interested in, so I didn't bid.
One poster refered to some "Haltrons" that look like Ruskies to him. While I'm not at all familiar with Haltron's, I would not even consider calling this a Russian made tube, after looking at the picture. Judging by the splash shield I would, however, consider the possibility that they're really some later production US tubes. Late 70's to early 80's or so, if I had to guess.
Anyhow...Just thought I'd drop my opinion in here for what it's worth.
:-)
Steve
Haltron is a British distributor of tubes (or as they call them,
valves). They never made anything, AFAIK, and I've seen
Haltron tubes that were quite old (like 1970's) that were
Russian manufacture.Richardson (as I noted in another post) owns the
Amperex brandname and does indeed sell 1980's
US Philips (nee Sylvania) manufacture as Amperex
"Bugle Boys".As far as packaging bulk-packed (ie:the tube factory
shipped them in egg crates for OEM use rather than
separate "jobber" boxes), I don't see any need to
put them in faked jobber boxes, they're just as NOS
in white boxes.....
I don't know if those earlier posts were actually about him, or another chap, but I've bought from him twice with no incidents.I think the problem with Mr. Lorenz Tang is with his boxes. It's
been explained to me that a lot of tubes were 'bulk' packed in
cases and without any individual boxes. Mr. Tang is able to acquire
these pristine, original, but boxless tubes and then has his own
boxes made up matching the originals.I have no first hand knowledge of this, however, I purchased some
Mullard GB 6DJ8s (tough to determine country of orgin anyway) from
him and the boxes seem a bit too new, no aging and the printing
isn't of first run quality. I guess he should state this fact when
he sells his tubes as most would understand. The tubes are the
real thing, at least in the two instances that I dealt with him,
but I haven't dealt with any other Asian dealers and the skuttlebutt
was (is) that many relabels were coming out of Hong Kong, so maybe it's 'guilt by association.'Chris
The fact is, this dealer clearly sells fakes but has a technique of avoiding negative feedback - he not only freely returns your money, but threatens negative feedback to you if you do it to him! He also seems to have feedback from many of the same people, who also turn up on Ebay selling the same stuff.Just look at the tubes posted and anyone who knows tubes knows they are fakes. The labelling on the tubes often doesn't even resemble the original manufacturers. The quantity of tubes and prices sold for are another big question mark.
The other problem is the quality of the tubes. A lot of the real stuff sold is of second run quality, poor section to section matching, poor test results generally, etc. etc..I guess people want to buy from him anyways. The cool looking boxes are a big selling point, and he always seems to have a steady supply to sell. If you wanna buy, buy - but I hope others are wary of this guy and look to the many dealers without question marks beside their names.
Yep, that's the deal. I bought a set of tubes from Lorenz; they were ridiculous fake Mullards, with the shiny new boxes. Sheah, right. The section to section balance on these relabelled Teslas was awful, and 4 of the 6 tested below mins. Factory-reject relabels.When I confronted Lorenz, he happily refunded my money including the shipping charge. So what can you do? According to eBay rules, he made "good" on the transaction by refunding the $$, so you can't leave negative feedback. And if you would, you risk getting it right back at you, and I don't want that scarlet letter on my eBay feedback rating.
I would imagine the story is the same for most people that discover they've been had. Of course, others are oblivious to it all, and they happily post positive feedback for the man. Such is eBay.
The VT-231s that I bought from Lorenz are obviously fakes.Raanan
Well, I just looked up some of Bugleman's current offerings (they're the same as his usual stock) and here's a little sample:Haltron ECC88 - he says made in England, but they look like Sovtek's to me. Never seen Haltron printing like this before, and the boxes are obvious fakes.
Brimar E88CC - not a surprise, they look exactly the same as the Haltrons he's offering.
Siemens ECC88 - again, same construction as the Brimar and Haltron offerings, and the print on the tubes is obviously not real Siemens.
Amperex EL34 quad - well, I guess he got nervous about this one cause real quads go for huge $$. He admits they are probably Chinese. But again, his stock of reprinted Amperex boxes goes with them.
Mullard GZ37 - this one's real dangerous. They are clearly substandard Chinese production and may not be real GZ37's at all. The Chinese version is very unreliable and actually can't handle the same current as the real Mullards. The unfortunate victim of this purchase may get a very nasty and dangerous surprise.
Amperex 5751 - print on the tubes is obviously not known Amperex labelling, boxes are reprints.
Amperex 5AR4 - same story as the 5751, and again, this might be a dangerous beastie for the buyer.I don't have the time or energy to go through all his many auctions, but if people wanna believe they're real, and it makes 'em happy, don't let any of the many postings about this deter you. There's a customer for everyone out there!
"Amperex EL34 quad - well, I guess he got nervous about this one cause real quads go for huge $$. He admits they are probably Chinese. But again, his stock of reprinted Amperex boxes goes with them.
Mullard GZ37 - this one's real dangerous. They are clearly
substandard Chinese production and may not be real GZ37's at all. The
Chinese version is very unreliable and actually can't handle the same current as the real Mullards. The unfortunate victim of this purchase may get a very nasty and dangerous surprise.
Amperex 5751 - print on the tubes is obviously not known Amperex
labelling, boxes are reprints.
Amperex 5AR4 - same story as the 5751, and again, this might be a
dangerous beastie for the buyer."The Amperex and Mullard brand names are both owned by
Richardson Electronics, Ltd. They've plastered those
brand names on all sorts of stuff that never got close
to a European factory, and still do with Amperex( go to
http://catalog.rell.com and search on Amperex).
Yes, this may seem outrageous to some folks, but
the name is legally their property and they're
entitled to use it to label tubes as they like.
That's undoubtedly where some of these "Amperex"
tubes he's selling came from (tho those 5751 don't look like
they're stamped any way I've ever seen Richardson do it,
but who knows). Philips (the people who used to own
Amperex) isn't exactly guilt-free either,
I've seen Chinese & Russian tubes in factory issue
Philips ECG boxes.
The Amperex boxes Richardson uses are pretty easy to detect,
look inside the bottom flap you'll see a "K P Co."
circular trademark. Since Richardson owns the box dies
and screens(ie: no one else could go to K P Co. and have the
same box made) and getting custom boxes made is a fairly
expensive propostion, one can be fairly confident that
boxes with the K P Co. mark came from Richardson.OTOH...
Looking at the GE 12AT7/6201's the guy is selling,
the tubes are labelled "JG-12AT7WA", which indicates they
ought to be in *military* boxes, not commercial (aka "jobber")
ones. And the numbers on the end of the box are in a
different typeface than GE normally used on their tube boxes.
AAMOF, I've got a JG-12AT7WA GE here, it's in a white
mil box, with a datecode on the outside as well as on the tube.In all fairness, the GZ37's do indeed look like the
real thing, tho.
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