18Watt.com

For instance...

http://vintageamps.com/plexiboard/viewt ... 4&t=103321


The more astute of you may notice that the Mazda's that are being sold for $105 dollars are in fact RFT's, which usually command around $30 each.

You may also notice that further down the Mazda's that are being sold for $149 are also RFT's.

You may then pay attention to the Edicrons being sold for $149, that are in fact Yugoslavian EI tubes, and usually go between $20 and $30 for a good one. (Many of these have been known to go microphonic quite early in their lifetime)

Unfortunately, pointing this out at home on the Plexi Palace Bulletin just earned me a lifetime ban. Apparently it is not okay for me to warn fellow members there of what they may unwittingly be purchasing, but it is okay for the site owner to dupe people with dishonestly described tubes (I say dishonestly, since I had pointed out what they were)

Just want to warn you all, that is all. Not just of this particular link, but of many, MANY sellers.

Amen. I've been burned more than i'd like to admit on the NOS hunt. Now i try to buy from a knowledgeable dealer that garantees what he sells. .02

Those prices are outrageous anyway. In the last 12 months I have bought a Mazda ECC83 and two Brimar ECC83s all for under £10 each plus postage on a major auction site from private individuals. All NOS.
Patience is a virtue and saves cash.
The Mazda is a lovely crisp valve but maybe better for reproduction than guitar?

Dd

True Mazda's can be a great tube, especially those wonderful silver plate versions...

demonufo wrote:True Mazda's can be a great tube, especially those wonderful silver plate versions...

There's not really such a thing as a "true Mazda". That's because the TM was the property of BTH (British Thomson Houston), and passed into the hands of the British Siemens group, who used it to sell Ediswan valves. Mazda as a discrete organisation was a relabeller. When it was part of Thorn EMI it relabelled valves made in GB (mostly Brimar / Ediswan), after GB production ceased it relabelled whatever it could get, Japanese, East German, Hungarian and Czech stuff mainly.

WWII messed things up for the European branches of Thomson Houston, especially because BTH held the Mazda brand. The Mazda factory in Belgium became MBLÉ (Mazda Belgique Lampes Électroniques) and the French factory became CIFTÉ. There was a Belgian operation that worked like the British Mazda company, they turned the name around and sold valves marked ADZAM.

When people talk about those "wonderful silver plate versions" of 12AX7, they are usually referring to valves produced by CIFTÉ for the French military in the 50s. They exist - ask Kleuck, he's got a couple.

Then again, I have some forgeries of similar valves. They are marked Mazda, but they have Ei Nis production codes ... WTH they do sound good!

Excellent. All good learning. I love this stuff.

Anything obvious about the forgeries to look out for?

demonufo wrote:Excellent. All good learning. I love this stuff.

Anything obvious about the forgeries to look out for?

They have "Philips style" codes, because the Ei factory was set up by Philips, but the code is usually two characters over three characters and begins with "2A" .

NB: not all valves marked this way are forgeries. Philips used to buy valves from Ei and relabel them as Miniwatt for sale in far eastern markets. I have some early 50s Ei greyplate Miniwatt 12AX7 I bought from an Australian a few years ago - that's nothing strange, the Aussies will tell you that they got very used to being sold all sorts of valves re-labelled as major brands in the past.

I'm pretty sure somebody just bought a load of unlabelled Ei valves and did the forging at home with a silkscreen printer. The forgeries are usually marked as Mazda or Siemens. WTH if it was a deliberate attempt at forgery Ei wouldn't put their standard code on, would they?

MBLÉ valves usually have a full 3 char over 4 char Philips code. I've only encountered a couple of CIFTÉ valves, they didn't have a Philips code.

I might also add that, although you sometimes see valves marked "Mullard Made in Australia", that's not the complete truth. There was a Mullard factory in Australia, but it only did the assembly and final pumping of the valves. The critical manufacture of the cathode assemblies was done in the Blackburn factory - don't let Made In Australia put you off buying, they are good stuff!