Will sets left alone be worth more?

[bgadow]

I had thought about this question before as it pertains to old radios, and my answer works here as well: some folks will pay huge money for an unbuilt Heathkit because they want to be the guy who gets to put it together. Many of us get our joy out of old sets by recapping them and troubleshooting, getting them back to working condition. There will come a day when the percentage of sets that have not been through the hands of collectors will be very, very small. Some of us, many years from now, will lament the fact that we have nothing left in our collection that needs an old-fashioned recap. We will hunger for a 'virgin'. We will someday pay extra for that.

I'm fairly certain that Packard-Bell never manufactured a single tube; they bought them from other companies who applied the P-B name. If you are a real stickler you could try to find a good P-B replacement; probably not too easy, but somebody will have it.