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Good Shopping for Old Radios

Steve Green NEPA

Steve Green NEPA

This may or may not be the proper place to ask, but what the heck?

Am in the market for a classic, suitcase-style Zenith Trans-Oceanic, plus either a well-working Lafayette HA 700 or HA-600.

Can someone here DF me to where these things might be available?
 
Are you able to do any repair yourself? That will go a long way toward whether you can find one in your price range and the availability.

I have a number of T-O's and I've found most of them on e-bay and didn't pay much for them, but they all needed repair. Lafayettes also come up there from time to time in all conditions and all price ranges.

Hamfests are great places to pick up decent equipment too. Flea Markets and antique shops sometimes yield a decent deal on an old radio too, dependingon who has them and what they think its worth.

I did a lot of digging in the antique and flea markets this past weekend, and I saw prices across the board. Many of the radios I found didn't work, or needed something. They were often times priced at what a good working, restored unit would sell for, in poor non-working condition.

I've even found radios in the most unlikely places too like yard sales, Goodwill, and even a local hardware store which has a running "yard sale corner" in the back.
 
I have seen several Trans-Ocaeanics (vacuum tube version - I have the first transistor version) at the antique malls. Since the individuals in the malls specialize, call around and find out if they have a booth there for antique radios. You may pay a little more at the mall but you can get it demonstrated for you to see that it works. Typically I remember having seen $100 - $175.
 
A working T-O for $100-175 would be a good deal. I've not found one for that price yet that didn't need work though. Usually the 1L6 is fried and they are hard to come by. I usually replace with a 1LA6 and adapter. The 50A1 usually is dead or MIA too and can hardly be found. If you do, then you won't want to use it for long. Then there is the issue of all the old paper caps. Most of the correctly working, restored/recapped/aligned models I see on e-bay and other places are in the $200 and up range.
 
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