[radiotvnut]

As usual, when I watch these "made for TV" antique shows, I almost want to throw up. Tonight was no exception.

Someone brought in a Califone tube record player/PA system for Rick to restore. Rick was saying 1960's; but, it's actually a '50's model. The owner said that when he plugged it in, the thing smoked. Rick immediately quoted him $1600 to restore it. The owner questioned this price and Rick gave him some line of BS about the tubes being hard to get and cost between $50 and $300 per tube. Now, you and I both know that these record players use common tubes that are not that hard to find or terribly expensive.

When they opened it, I saw what looked to be a burned power resistor that they were calling a capacitor.

When he came to pick up the record player, Rick only charged him $800 because "the damage wasn't as bad as he thought." He did say that he had to replace the speaker and some of the tubes were hard to find. For the cosmetics, they stripped off the old case covering and painted the case some hideous green.

For that amount of money, he could have found some decent looking case covering and done a full restoration on the amp and drive mechanism. Also, in real life, most people would have a hard attack if you quoted them $300, let alone $1600.

Now, you'll suddenly see these listed on ebay for insane prices after people saw one on TV.