Early Mullard colour TV valve carton.

Hi David, i have a few of the first Mullard boxed valves for ctv. Some have Complete colour capability printed on them, Malc.

More around than you probably think, I've seen quite a few in others collections. Although I have many colour valves from all sorts of brands, I only have three in the colourful boxes, PD500's and PL509.

Your not short of valves Chris, I had forgotten about CPC selling valves, lots of Pinnacle ones. I don't know about the other makes but Pinnacle alway date stamped the valve with the month and year they were sold to the dealer with a 12 month guarantee.

Frank

nuvistor said
Your not short of valves Chris

Compared to others my collection is very modest, I'm at around 3000-3500. I believe Luke (mendipviews) is up at around 30,000 at which point he stopped counting

nuvistor said
I had forgotten about CPC selling valves, lots of Pinnacle ones.
Frank  

Yes all sorts of branded valves, Mullard, Mazda, Brimar, Solus, Pinnacle, CPC, HRS, Edicron, Loyds, CHS, National, Zaerux, Rediffusion, Granada, RCA, Philips, Tungsram, Osram, Cossor, Marconi, Delco are amongst them.

Most of the valve stock although some are in boxes in other areas of the TV stock room.

Yes all sorts of branded valves, Mullard, Mazda, Brimar, Solus, Pinnacle, CPC, HRS, Edicron, Loyds, CHS, National, Zaerux, Rediffusion, Granada, TCA, Philips, Tungsram, Osram, Cossor, Marconi, Delco are amongst them.

Not forgetting Bentley Acoustics, I have a number of these mainly audio valves.

I must do a count of my collection, must be hundreds lol

I have about a dozen, spares for the small radio collection I have. Some new, some s/h but working, i.e. soak tested in a radio, not a valve tester.

I didn't have 3000 valves on the shelf when I was fixing the sets, on the other hand I could collect new ones for most types from the wholesalers 10 mins drive away if I ran short. Always stocked up every month and rarely an out.

A lot more difficult today, only a few stock them and some types not at all.

Chris, I presume  every one is fully tested .

Frank

malcscott said
Hi David, i have a few of the first Mullard boxed valves for ctv. Some have Complete colour capability printed on them, Malc.  

The phrase Complete Colour Capability seemed to be a marketing phrase of theirs; it also appears in the Mullard "How To Build Your Own Dual Standard Colour Telly" book (not its real title, obviously!).

nuvistor said
Chris, I presume  every one is fully tested .

Frank  

Well I did make a start and marked a number of boxes but quickly realised that was a bit pointless lengthy and formidable task. Now I only test test when one is required for use.

I don't have an AVO as I've no need for the scientific results it offers or need to do matching. I settled on a Mullard MKIV HSVT ( of which I have all the cards including CRT's) running via a Claude Lyon stabilised power supply. This gives me all I need to know about a valve, providing electrode insulation tests, Grid and Anode short tests and of course emission. Even a valve in the amber region has at least 50,000 hours of life left.

I also used to test for folk and provide a test card, though that has now ceased. It rarely gets an outing these days as most of my work is solid-state. Though with a fair few hybrids in the collection it still has a place and use.

And I thought I had a lot of valves when I'd reached 5 shoe-boxes full

I also have a Mullard HSVT, I've never used it! Probably about time I moved it on...

I haven't come across any valves with mention of colour TV on them before.

Regards,

Lloyd.

The first company I worked for had a HSVT. I was helping to install TV's and aerials when I first started, then moved on to bench work but not at the main site so never had chance to use it.

Moved on to a new company, they had no valve tester and I seemed to manage without for the next 15 or 16 years or so.

Frank

nuvistor said
Moved on to a new company, they had no valve tester and I seemed to manage without for the next 15 or 16 years or so.

Which further proves and I'm sure you know the adage many an engineer would chant, "the best valve tester is the set itself young-un!".

Unless you're in the business of selling valves and or matching for audio types, a valve tester is a toy most of us can well get along without. However if you like toys and test equipment in general, then many a therapeutic hour can be spent checking old valves. And with the Mullard HSVT its much like playing the one arm bandits of old. 

The old colour valve box is a nice reminder when we had a proper TV servicing trade, I won't use that that schmaltz "happy days" but we were all busy and most of time and it was a pleasant job.  In September 2012 we had the great analogue switch off, at the same I was booked in to hospital for a minor operation. I explained to the hospital about the important event and the op was postponed for a week.   There was lot of retuning to do and it was like back to the good old days again when we had >15 service calls to do in a working day.  I've got to say I actually enjoyed the chaos and all due course all those jobs were cleared up.             I don't dig this servicing thing in which you plug in a stick into the USB socket.

I'm sure there is more of those old style colour valve boxes in the shop.

Till Eulenspiegel.