This is the Vintage Electronics Marketplace - here you will find tube radios, vintage cassette decks, classic 8-track players, rare vintage alnico speakers, record players and phonographs. Be sure to check out the vast inventory of Vintage Gramophones, ham radios, shortwave receivers, classic tube amplifiers, transistor radios and old black and white televisions. Our inventory is constantly changing so book mark this page and check back often so you don't miss out on the great deals that happen daily.
Vintage Tube Electronics - Tube Radios and Amplifiers
Vacuum Tube types have changed over the years. The very oldest tubes looked more like light bulbs and had a screw type base. Most 1920s tubes had glass envelopes and large bakelite bases with four or five pins. Tubes from the 1930s and 1940s typically had glass or metal envelopes and six, seven, or eight pins. A Locking metal base was used on tubes in the late 1940s, they were called "loktal. They were superseded in the 1950s by all-glass "miniature" tubes with very thin pins. Keep in mind that different tube types overlapped. For example, some radios continued to use loktal or older tube types into the 1950s. However, if your radio uses glass miniature tubes, you know it must have been made after the end of World War II, and was likely made in the 1950s or later.
Tubes are still being manufactured today in Russia, China and several former Eastern Block nations. Avid collectors and Audiophiles prefer the original old tubes and they bring in a premium in the market today.
