1B3s…..
 

Does anyone else have piles of these dumb things, or is it just me?

Well for a few years every TV had one. And like a lot of this stuff us hobbyists will never use them up before the CRT supply dries up.

Yep. I probably have 40 or more. Some pulls, some NOS. I was up at a abandoned dump up in the mountains and found a rusted TV chassis and low and behold inside what was left if the HV cage was a 1B3. I pulled it out and took it home and tested it and it still worked. I had likely been there since the early 70's

I was in a thrift store and they had a wicker basket full of 6CB6 pulls and I grabbed them. Think I paid $2 for the lot. I wish my Compactron tube collection was as good as my collection of 1950's tv tubes

1B3/1G3, 6CB6, 6AL5, 6AQ5 if each were worth what a Western Electric 2A3 is I could pay off my student loans, buy a house, have someone else restore all my cars, and maybe buy one of the least valuable used Ferraris.

I wish I had a time machine so I could trade all my chaff for some prime audio tubes.

I need to go through my HV rectifier box(most of mine are used pulls)...every time I need a 1B3, 3A3, 3AT3 etc it seems like I have to test 4 before I find one that isn't open heater or too weak to register on my tester. It would probably open up space just to cull the open heater ones.

The guys on DIYAudio are (slowly) making progress on a class D tube amplifier that uses damper tubes as output devices, somehow. Never give up hope, that bucket of 6AX4s could still be worth something someday!

Then we'll all be hanging onto them when the price jumps up to same as a 6L6.

I heard that some of the home brew audio guys are getting into some of the Compactrons too. Horizontal outputs IIRC.

I'm not a fan of using TV tubes for audio stuff, especially when most of the good audio tubes are still being produced. I like my TV/radio tubes cheap and plentiful. When I get around to replacing the driver in my Dynaco ST-70 I will NOT be using the 6GH8 board.

Oh, they're already fully "into" them. :) A number of triple-triode compactrons command 6SN7 prices already. Not to mention those old 6LF6, etc., that have been hoarded by the ham radio guys.

True. Those late 60's early 70's D&A CB linear amps were using color tv horizontal output tubes like that.

I was reading that guys used to use those lousy Realistic Lifetimer tubes in them so that when they burnt out they could take them back to Radio Shack and get another tube for free under warranty when they burnt out.

I have a nice pretty glowing one i can use as a nightlight, does that count? :P

https://i.imgur.com/z7NnpHg.jpg

I have about 10 or 15 of them in my tube stash in varying degrees of working order.
I even have the rare 1J3 variant of the 1B3 tube in my stash that's a NOS tube.

The interesting thing is that I have about 3 TVs in my collection that take the 1B3 tube and they are all 1950s and early 1960s vintage TVs, the Meck Philharmonic Model 8200 TV of mine takes a 1B3 tube, my Zenith "Bugeye" TV takes one, and my RCA TV takes one.

Um, I think your 1B3 in your picture is redplating... :thumbsdn:

Those HV Rectifier tubes aren't supposed to glow purple like that, the only tubes that should glow like that are your gas discharge regulator tubes like your 0A2 and OA3 tubes for example. :scratch2:

no, it was just VERY old, and as gassy as a grandpa after a bean festival!

oddly enough, the old one had no flashed getter , where the new one did.
I still have the bad tube just for fun!

I've got a CRT in a little 7" Crown that does that . :no:

Theres a hairline crack where the 2nd Anode well joins the glass. Gone gassy / to air.
RIP little 190CB4.

OK, I wasn't sure, I've only seen that happen in real life to some old 7027-A tubes in an old Stromberg-Carlson Stereo Amplifier from the late 1950s, and more recently my 22" Zenith TV's picture tube, and I never realized that was a sign of a gassy tube, especially on the old 7027-A tubes that I had in an old Stromberg-Carlson Stereo Amplifier I used to have years ago.