On Thu, 5 Feb 2004 04:15:29 UTC, - - Bill - -
wrote:

Brian Hill wrote:
"N2EY" wrote in message

Not a typo - five

thousand one hundred dollars.



WOW! is all I can say




Did he build it or does he just have a $5000 box of old parts sitting in
the shack for looks?

-BM

Nah, certainly someone who paid that much understands the
"investment value". Do a websearch for "catalin radio" for
shocking valuations. Also see those "Antique Roadshows", where
hideous junque goes for ten times that and more.

I caught one last weekend, they had an "1800's American Indian
carrying pack for babies". It was made of a couple horse blankets
and had yarn woven into a diamond pattern, $50,000 or more. It
looked like a couple old horse blankets that someone had trimmed
with coarse yarn. Ugly.

There was also a painting of an old house. Looked amateurish
but supposedly done by a "famous artist". Gag me with a J-38.

I turned it off. It was too much to take.

That AT-1 is *cheap* at $5,100.

1) It is a early relic of a technological age that will never, ever
come again. The homebuilt tube radio era when kids saved their
milk-money to buy magical communications devices.

2) It is a Heathkit. The Heath line was an anomaly in the ham
world. A few genius engineers put technological marvels in
"everyman's" hands. I remember the awe of putting my DX-60
together in 1963 as a 16 year old.

3) It is an "unbuilt" kit. As others have said, there are lots of
built kits available but the "unbuilts" are the rarest of the rare.

I started restoring boatanchors a couple years ago when a hand
surgery went bad. Scared my doc, he could see the liability suit.
I have no (ZERO) interest in sueing someone for drawing bad cards,
luck of the draw. He told me to work my fingers as I had never
worked them before to regain manual dexterity (this is after we were
sure I wasn't going to lose the hand.)

Turns out that refurbing boatanchors is fun, almost as much fun as
building the DX-60 or that incident with "Trixie-Lee" when I was
18.

I've updated my boatanchor site, start at
www.kiyoinc.com/heathstuff.html and follow the eZine/BLOG.