Hey Zeno !
 

:D Remember these ?

I photographed the back so folks could see that these were "punch cards" , a technology that most under 50 may not be familiar with , unless of course they have one of RCA's "cardmatic" tube testers . For those who've never seen one of these cards , this is how a TV shop would order the tubes it needed , with a different card for each tube type . This card was ordering five 3AT2B tubes as indicated at the top left corner of the card .

I mean, I'm not one of those 'most.'

But wait wait. You're saying that a tv shop would need a card punching machine to order tubes? #doubtit. I'd imagine that Zenith would simply send their own punch card of the order along with the tubes that were ordered.

But it's still cool, either way.

Cant say I have seen one. I would guess it was only used in
Chicago. Most Zenith was sold through independent distributors.
They sold sets, parts & had service depts. I doubt any had computers
til late. I suppose you could throw them in a box when a sleeve
ran low & when one of the indies salesmen comes weekly you
could hand them over. Other than that I think its just a "look what we
can do" type thing. I see no advantage over writing the number
on the want list.

73 Zeno:smoke:
LFOD !

:thmbsp: I'll bet your right , this card likely showed up with the tubes for the repair shop to keep record of what they bought .

I see . I figured since you did TV repair you would have seen these but if they weren't the norm for the independent distributors then I can understand that . It was found in the contents from a closed TV shop in Lynn , Ma.

Ah Lynn the city of sin. Odds are I had seen them but didnt register in my
mind or I forgot. We had tons of Zenith tubes even some loctals that were
in sealed cans never opened.
BTW Boston Zenith was Northeastern Distributors, Vassar St. Cambridge.
Also sold Kelvanator, Gusdorf & other things.
Admiral was in Medfid, RCA, GE, Panny, Motorola & Sony Service were
all on University Ave. in Westwood. I did a stretch at Sony back abt 1977
doing mostly smalls. Got sick of changing clocks half the day & left.

73 Zeno:smoke:
LFOD !

I had a few of those punch cards. If you bought a stacker of five of the same type of tube, they were included.
IDK, if it was intended for the dealer or the distributor for reorder, possibly both.
I was a small-time part-time operator, but there was certain types where I'd buy five at a time. Naturally 6GH8's.
The Zenith distributor had a better price on tubes, than the rest of the jobbers. :thmbsp: