[WalterBright]

Those aren't old TVs.

When I was a kid, I'd go to the TV repair shops and take old "unrepairable" vacuum tube TVs (no transistors!) off their hands. At home I tried to fix them. I had no idea how to fix them. But I had a lot of fun trying.

One of the fun things was to randomly swap around the vacuum tubes and see what would happen. Very entertaining! I used to have a box full of scavenged tubes. Sadly, I eventually tossed them out, never realizing how valuable they'd be in a few years.

My mom was convinced I was going to electrocute myself, and finally made me get rid of the sets.

[alnwlsn]

Your mom was probably thinking along the right lines haha.

But don't worry, TV tubes are practically worthless. I've been to swap meets for an antique radio club in my area. Sometimes, there will be a few boxes of tubes from TV sets there (400-500 tubes) and people literally can't give them away. Tubes from audio equipment are the only ones people are after.

[WalterBright]

Thanks! I didn't know that.

[voldacar]

Most TV tubes aren't too valuable. Now if your TV was made by telefunken, that might be a different story

[WalterBright]

I do prefer tubes that have the funk.

[WalterBright]

Oh, I did understand what resistors, capacitors (then called condensers), and inductors did, but how they worked together to make a TV work utterly baffled me. I couldn't understand how the vacuum tubes worked, either. I didn't know anyone who had any idea how electronics worked.