Larry, that's how he's able to keep his feedback so good despite ripping people off. He knows a certain high % will think they got what they wanted, but it wasn't and they never knew to complain.
Below is a post I made from this thread at PP
http://vintageamps.com/plexiboard/viewtopic.php?t=71312
about some of the tubes he has listed on his site and how shady they are:
-------------------------------
For the newer guys that haven't been around to read the threads, be very careful using wiwi tubes. There's no doubt he sells some legit stuff, but there's also no doubt he sell bogus stuff......and I even say that from my own personal experience.
If you go to his site right now, you can see pictures of Tesla labeled and boxes tubes that are obvious fakes (tube actually made by JJ). There are more examples like that. I've even emailed him about this and he has a number of excuses, says he'll look into it or doesn't respond. Why does he have such good feedback on Ebay? Because most people don't realize they were taken if they were, and if they do realize and complain, he refunds their money and is a nice guy about it.
Most of his funny business involves taking a certain tube, make a repro box for it and stamp logo on it and get top dollar as NOS NIB. For example, he has a Mullard EL34 pic on his site that has an xf3 with a shield logo on it. Obviously, he got sloppy and forgot Mullard stopped using shield logo's in 1970. He used to have a different pic with the same thing, except the tube was obviously very used and it was an xf4.
I bought 2 Mullard GZ34's from him a long time ago, and paid top dollar. When I got them, the tube boxes were obvious repro's and they had Mullard logo's with phony logo's. The print was solid white and hard as a rock, not to mention some inconsistencies with normal Mullard print. But the tubes were fine and worked great.
So I got a good pair of tubes, but I paid for NOS NIB and that's not what I got. Buyer Beware.
Example #1: These are not Tesla, rather recent production JJ's with phony boxes and print
Example #2: In the later years, many companies did start labeling Chinese and Russian tubes. There's also some out there that were stamped by people trying to sell big lots to dealers as a scam. Luckily it doesn't happen too much anymore because people are aware and know tube construction better. Is this an original label on this apparent Chinese tube? I don't know for sure, but those are definitely repro boxes. It looks like there might be some residue on the inside of the glass across from the rectangular holes in the plates which usually means they've had some use. If you ask for Holland Amperex EL34's, is this what you get? I don't know. Be very careful.
Example #3: Here are the Mullard EL34 xf3's. The tubes themselves look great. However, the labels are fake (should have the later Mullard print and logo) and these are those fake red repro boxes floating around. Not all Mullard repro boxes are like this, but many are white on the reverse side....they printed onto a white box and just printed red and black over it. Obviously, these are the shield logo era boxes and the real ones are sought after.
Example #4: He's got these listed as Mazda silver plate 12AX7's. They do say foreign made on them, but I'm sure some newbies would think these are the Mazda silver plates everyone talks about. These are fairly recent production tubes in what I think are repro boxes. I see him sell these on Ebay a lot. I can't say for sure, but I don't think these were printed by Mazda nor were the boxes. Fishy.
Example #5: Same as #4, except he calls these Mazda grey plate 12AX7. These are not the Mazda grey plates made by Mazda that everyone talks about.
Example #6: All the Amperex 12AX7/ECC83 he has listed are USA made, so if you want Holland Amperex, make sure that's what you get. The following pic are the Richardson era Amperex Bugle Boys. These are USA tubes labeled and boxed by R. just a few years back and not the late 50's/early 60's Holland Amperex BB's every one wants.
I could keep going, but I think you could see how newer folks to tubes could end up getting something that wasn't what they really wanted.....and maybe not even know.
I dunno
self explanitory befor??
