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False advertising of expensive special tubes?

I have a couple of Ebay E-mail alerts for particular tubes when they are listed. There has been an enormous number of 12AU7s being sold as the special 7316 variant. If a person knows how to tell wheat from chaff OK, but what is our responsibility to those don't. Sometimes the worst looking tubes are the real McCoy as they were developed for sensitive computing and medical electronics many are pulls from Beckman , H/P et. al.
I'll fill you in it is a Philips product and were made only in the Holland Heerland plant they were acid etched with a right triangle indicating so, the rest of the etch contains a "Ct" on the top and second level on bottom of the code with an integer for the year. (late 50s and early 60s.)
So should I bother pointing out the deluge of 12AU7s given that name or just assume the buyer should know and it is Caveat Emptor? For instance there are regular 50s 6SN7GTs being called B65s. I know the sellers just want eyes on their products. What do you think?
mechans
zd542
5,339 posts
 
Can one of you guys explain this to me? I had to miss something. I checked out some of the listings on ebay for these tubes, and didn't see anything that looked misleading.
ebm
9,311 posts
 
Ebay sells crap big time.HELLO!!
brownsfan
1,508 posts
 
I buy something on ebay about once every 2 years, just to remind myself why I shouldn't buy anything on eBay. Too bad, it used to be a real asset back in its first few years.
swampwalker's avatar
swampwalker
5,138 posts
 
+1Brownsfan. Funny but oh so true.
mechans OP
3,048 posts
 
@ZD542 I get email alerts for this tube and the vast majority of tubes given that name are not real. The tubes have to come from Holland the Heerland plant was the place Philips decided to make this tube. That simple criteria is frequently not even fulfill they should be labeled as Amperex. Amperex should be on tubes not contracted for industry. When I see a industry pull I am more convinced about it's being a 7316. Tubes can be labeled 7316 but do not fulfill the other code requirements. The label isn't the way you decide if it is a true 7316, in the very it must be a Philips made at Heerlen the only place they were made.
That said, I don't know what the current inventory of 7316 tubes is on ebay is at he moment. Recently there were Tungsram tubes being offered with that appellation clearly on the tubes with 7316 printed on the tube. I get similar offers by email every morning. The tubes I have seen over the past year are simply not all 7316s. The fraction of the true tube. seems to be smaller and smaller.
I have seen this before with a scarce tube type getting big money. Overnight every body has some to sell.
thanks for your thoughts and posts.
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