Another trip to the London Vintage Radio Club today. One person bought a tube tester adapter that allows an old tube tester to take more modern tubes. (Yeah, I know, modern tubes is an oxymoron, but this updates tube testers from the 1950's to the 1960's.) I thought it would go for a couple of bucks but someone offered $10 for it. Who am I to refuse? Another thing sold that I had been tripping over - a power supply designed to provide power from the power lines to old 1920's radios that operated from batteries. That went for $5. I sold a Stark meter that measured volts, ohms, milliamps and capacitance and had an RF probe with it. I asked $10 and the buyer offered $15. Again, who am I to refuse? The last item I sold was an explosimeter, a device where you squeeze a rubber bulb to draw in the air sample and it determines whether you have an explosive mixture or not. That went for a buck because I had no need for it. I bought a package of 9 volt battery snap connectors for $2, so I sold $31 worth and bought $2 worth. Better than I thought it would be because that power supply had been offered and had not sold many times before. The buyer was a guest, not a member, so new blood is always welcome and sometimes new people have a new perspective about the value of various things.
Today's presentation was about juke boxes and the guys brought three of them in (about 450 to 550 pounds apiece). Here's a quiz for you:
1. What were the big four juke box manufacturers?
2. What were the top four records ever played on juke boxes?
1. Wurlitzer, Seeburg, Rockola, AMI
2. Hound dog - Elvis Presley
Don't Be Cruel - Elvis Presley
Rock Around the Clock - Bill Haley and the Comets
Crazy - Patsy Cline
Interesting fact - Rockola started well before the rock and roll era because the head of the company was a Mr. Rockola from Manitoba, Canada, who went to Chicago to start his company.