How Odd!

The Biffa bin awaits.

Till Eulenspiegel.

Everyone should have a TV22, and a DAC90(A) - (I'm still wating to find mine).....

That is a tragic story, and how sad that a set so recently restored should suffer such indignities.. At least it is now back in safe hands.

Marion

Hi Marion,
It's not a TV22, a TV24 woodie is on Ebay
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1950S-BUSH-TV ... _182wt_955

What's more the vendor is located in east Yorkshire.

Till Eulenspiegel.

I'm happy to have a DAC10 rather than DAC90A, but a TV22 would be nice

Hi Marion,
It's not a TV22, a TV24 woodie is on Ebay
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1950S-BUSH-TV ... _182wt_955

What's more the vendor is located in east Yorkshire.

Till Eulenspiegel.

Hi Till,

Thanks, I'd sussed that, and have entered into dialogue with the seller.. Someone will nab a nice telly.

Marion

at least two Mirror lid TV's all smashed by other things carelessly thrown into the skip.

What a sad story
I take it these were post war sets? I wish I could have been there to fill up my van, even in the smashed state these sets could have been donors, we all know that parts are like rocking horse dung

It sickens me to see such waste. There was a private radio museum local to me, the contents ended up the same way, luckily I was tipped off and raced down in the van and rescued as much as possible, including a smashed round Ekco and a cracked Philco 444!
I also got a dogeared copy of Radio, Radio that had pencilled ticks against all the sets in the collection, most of which had probably met the same fate.

While there was a fair few worthless 50's woodies, there were some very early and valuable sets that were deliberately smashed up.

You would think that anyone with any brains would have chucked them on ebay rather than skip the lot

Sadly people can't be bothered.

The 1950s "woodies" too might not have much monetary value but all worthy of "saving". Also even they are now 60 years old.

Trevor

What a disaster all that stuff being thrown out like that.

You would think someone would have seen some commercial value in selling it off even as a job lot.

At least you got the TV22 and maybe a few more things to come.

Cheers

Ian

Hello Trevor,

Might it be worth trying to track down the skip and see if some of the items could be saved,even if just for parts?
I am very pleased that you have aquired the TV22, with more items on the way !

Regards,
Chris

Such stories upset me in several ways. Firstly I find it distressing that these things should be mindlessly destroyed. Secondly it makes me wonder about my own collections. Will they end up the same way and what's the point of collecting interesting stuff if one day someone will just destroy it? There also seems to be something wrong when Brian is going to such efforts to recreate a mirror-lid whilst somewhere else two of them are being destroyed.

On the other hand, when someone passes away, the relatives will have many more things on their minds and may not have the time, space or inclination to keep stuff to sell on Ebay or whatever, even assuming that they realised it was valuable in the first place.

Maybe each of us should think a bit about the future and make appropriate preparations so that our treasures don't suffer the same fate.

Yes.
Catalogue with approximate values at a date (not what it cost inc postage, that's irrelevant).

List of places & people that buy

And/or alternate people to bequeath stuff to.

What a story!

Not one, but two mirror-lid TVs smashed up. If they were pre-war ones, they could have been worth THOUSANDS of pounds. If those house clearance guys knew that, they'd be kicking themselves now. Even a damaged one would have been worth a considerable amount of money - certainly worth putting in the van and rescuing, but it's too late now.

At least one TV22 was saved, and possibly a few other items. How the repaired TV22 ended up there may be a bit of a mystery, but my guess is that the original owner lost contact with Trevor. When the set needed repair again it may have been taken to the other guy's TV repair shop, and for some reason the repair was never completed before the old man died. Alternatively perhaps the original owner sold the set to the man from the TV shop. The shop owner appears to have been a bit of a hoarder, after all.

Sadly I've seen this kind of thing happen before. In the last decade I used to help out at the local household waste tip. Often when an old person had died, pretty much the entire contents of their house were emptied into the tip. All that person's once treasured possessions, even gold watches, jewellery and money were just shovelled into black bin bags and dumped. The amount of waste I saw going into the tip was shocking. But the reason was that the relatives just wanted to clear the house out so they could sell it as quickly as possible. ("I want my inheritance money NOW!"). They weren't bothered about selling old possessions for maybe a thousand pounds - they wanted to sell a house worth £250,000. One or two thousand extra didn't matter much to them, and instead of having any value, the old person's stuff simply got in the way.

I'm also sad to say that my family have said that if I die, they'll hire a big skip and chuck all my stuff in it. I really should make a will, but then it's still up to others to carry it out. There's no guarantee of that. The only consolation is that my 'junk' will have given me pleasure while I've owned it.

Not one, but two mirror-lid TVs smashed up. If they were pre-war ones, they could have been worth THOUSANDS of pounds. If those house clearance guys knew that, they'd be kicking themselves now.

Even post war mirror lids would be worth a few bob.

Might be worth tracking the skip company down. Outside chance might be something salvageable, but if nothing else if they become aware of the value of the stuff they just destroyed (and we can't blame them for not knowing) then it may save future stuff from ending the same way or they could become a useful source now they know of someone that'll pay to take this stuff off their hands.

TTFN,
Jon

But the reason was that the relatives just wanted to clear the house out so they could sell it as quickly as possible.

It's not necessarily that they want to sell the house. Some people live in rented accommodation and the landlord wants to re-rent it to secure his income. That's what happened with my grandparents. The house had to be cleared, my parents didn't have anywhere to put their stuff and had to get rid of it any way they could. There was no Ebay then and by the time I arrived most of it was a heap of ashes in the garden. They didn't have anything very valuable, just a load of interesting things from the 20s and 30s but I was still upset about it. I did manage to rescue a piano, an oak table and an Ekco radio.

I'm also sad to say that my family have said that if I die, they'll hire a big skip and chuck all my stuff in it.

I know someone with a large cigarette card collection. His wife says she will throw it away when he dies. Her view is that he devotes too little time to her and too much to his cards. One day she will get her own back. I guess the lesson there is collect but be nice to SWMBO as well.

While I'm saddened to see the loss of this much good stuff I'll take a deliberately contrary position. It's only stuff. It's not unique, or at least probably not. It's not of national or international significance.

As for when we pass on, we owe it to our nearest and dearest to make a will. Even if you're only 25 you can still die in a car crash. I haven't put anything about my collection in my will but have left a note with the will. This was recommended to me by a friendly solicitor. Please feel free to copy my note and adapt it to your own circumstances.

Jeffrey has beaten me to it, I was going to say much the same thing. Much as we'd like to think that our nearest and dearest would cherish our collections after our death, it's quite unlikely beyond one or two select pieces, if that. As long as you enjoy it whilst you're alive, that's all that really matters.

I know only too well what happens when you don't make a will. In my case, the radio/TV collection is specifically mentioned in my will (along with other collections not relevant here) and specific instructions for its disposal and bequests are contained therein. Much of the stuff (by current standards) is pretty worthless - I don't see people falling over themselves to buy post-war 4+1s at radio events. Despite a Bush AC11 being the same age now (older, in fact) as a GECoPhone "Smoker's Cabinet" was when I started collecting, it doesn't hold the same cachet!

The 1950s "woodies" too might not have much monetary value but all worthy of "saving". Also even they are now 60 years old.

I did rescue the savable ones, and filled up the remaining space in my van with several sets that were later stripped for parts.

Some of the sets had been restored at some point in the past, and were still in working order, despite their ordeal!

I will be doing something similar to Jeffrey, I do not want my collection to have such a sad and undignified end.

Hello All,

On a slight tangent from the thread, but with the same idea. I used to work for a company called Inserv in South Woodford. We used to repair (mainly) test equipment, AVO's, Multimeters, scopes, Industrial timers, monitoring equipment e,t,c.
Many years after the company disappeared, I was browsing around our local car boot sale and came across a nice clean, still in original leather box, AVO 8. It was nice and clean and cheap, so I bought it (always handy).
When I got it home to have a good look it had an Inserv sticker on it, and inside it had My initialled sticker !!
I must admit that I was very surprised and it was kind of spooky that I had repaired and calibrated this years before, and It had now come back to me.
It still worked well and had no faults at all, so I must have done a good job !!

Cheers,
Alan.

I managed to get hold of a Mk IV Melotron from Dubai TV where it was on the scrap heap . On getting it home, I decided to exchange it with Streetly Electronics, the Melotron manufacturers, for the restoration of the MkI Melotron I got from the BBC. When the guys came to pick it up, one of them found a label inside it with his signature on it. He was in Final Test when the instrument was sold (to EMI Systems).

.....Sucked in PZ30....

I'd quite like to see this, any chance of a picture?

Dave.