12ax7 ID Help

[lp20th]

I found this 12ax7 in a early/mid 60's stereo. The labeling is green but worn to the point of not being able to read it all. There is no etchings in the glass. There is a "Made in Holland" stencil. At the tail end of the of the green labeling there is a 564, maybe 1964 is the year? Sounds real nice in my JTM50 clone. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

[demonufo]

Well, this is interesting.

I have seen several Yugoslavian EI tubes with various Philips brands AND Made In Holland printed on them, but this is a new one to me. Appears to be a smooth plate tube, but definitely NOT of EI or Telefunken origin.

Sorry that's been of no help whatsoever. But at least you can rule those two out. I wonder if Philips plants did actually make smooth plates at one point...

Any chance you can get some better, closer pics on the internal structure? Pretty please.

[lp20th]

Here's a few close ups, hopefully they are clear enough to catch the detail. Thanks for taking a look.

[demonufo]

I'm still a little confused. They're ribbed plates, I can see now, although they appear to have only 2 "ribs" whereas Heerlen production Philips tubes normally have three, and there is normally a circular hole in the plates located vertically between the two crimp holes in the plates in the corner where the plates come forward.

The wings of the plates that poke through the mica insulators look the same shape as Philips tubes though. Trouble is, what I can see is quite limited.


Here's a useful page I saved in my bookmarks for identifying Philips tubes, although it doesn't appear to be working at the moment...
http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showth ... 015&page=2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[ol foot]

I made a pdf of it in case it can't be viewed unless your a member there.

[demonufo]

Good man! Never even occurred to me...

[lp20th]

Thanks guys. I've got some more research to do. In the meantime I'll just enjoy the tone I'm getting from the tube.

[Coot Boy]

Here's a useful page I saved in my bookmarks for identifying Philips tubes, although it doesn't appear to be working at the moment...
http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showth ... 015&page=2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Now that's how you photograph a tube

[demonufo]

Okay, I asked Marty Overbey about this, who passed it on to his bud Alan Murray...

Alan came back with the suggestion that you look at pics of Toshiba, Japanese tubes. Which would make sense.

It means the Made In Holland print is bogus though... but then all of the print on that tube look odd, anyway.

[lp20th]

Thank you. I appreciate the investigations.

One question though, would Japanese counterfeits be around in the early to mid 60's?

The old stereo console I pulled this from was my parents. It was purchased new around 1965. It never was serviced. It died in the mid 70's. At that time I bought them a more modern receiver and installed it in the cabinet. The old electronics remained dormant in the console until fairly recently when I wondered what might be in there and took a look. To my suprise I found 3 12ax7's and 1 12au7. The 12au7 and 2 of the 12ax7's were branded IEC. The 2 12ax7's also say made in Great Britain and are etched I61. The 12au7 has no etch but does say made in Great Britiain. In doing some research on IEC, apparently it was an American company that imported tubes and rebranded them. The 2 I61's do sound great, just a little darker than the I63's I have.

So that leaves the 1 mystery 12ax7 with the green lettering.

I do remember this stereo sounding real good when I was kid. It had some Jensen speakers in it as well. I gutted the whole console and kept all the electronics and the speakers.

[demonufo]

It's not so much that the Japanese were counterfeits, and they certainly were around back then. That stencil could have been there for any variety of reasons. They could have been imported halfway around the world in bulk boxes, stamped in another country, and then sold on.
It is unusual for them to actually say "Made In" though, but not unheard of.

I shouldn't sweat it, anyways. Japanese tubes have great reputations, and are probably the next great tubes for prices to hit the roof. At the moment they're reasonable sensible (ish)

Definitely a Toshiba from what I can see though. The mica insulators are different to others I've seen (although I've not seen them all). I have no reason to doubt Alan.

[demonufo]

Update: Marty has reliably informed me that Japanese tubes were abundant by the mid 50's. I knew they were all around the world by the 60's, but this is news for me. So certainly not unusual to find them in something of that era. The mix of makes and marques is a tad confusing though, if truly original.

[lp20th]

Thank you again and also thanks to your buddies Marty and Alan too. The gear page link ypu posted inspired (reads embarrassed) me to work on my photography skills a bit. So I took another stab at it. It was a cold bright sunny day here in Connecticut today so I took more pictures, outside this time. I think real daylight helps out a lot. Hopefully a little better than the last set of pictures, Also I found some pictures of some early 60's Toshiba tubes on the internet. It certainly looks like a match to me. The only kicker is the Made in Holland stencil. Here are my pictures and the Toshiba ones as well.

[demonufo]

Hahaha, great pics. Taking pics of tubes is really hard, especially indoors. And when you have shaky hands like I do...

Yeah, the made in Holland stencil is nothing unusual. This was done an awful lot, by many manufacturers from when home-grown supplies weren't so hot. The thing that confirms it, is the different colour print. Definitely a later addition.

I'm going to have to source some decent Jap tubes myself later this year, to satisfy my curiosity, methinks.