K3HVG wrote:
The ARRL handbook, et al, merely mirror the information that has come
out of the tube industry's long-running standards for tube bases. Your
observation of the numbering system is pretty much correct. The final
"authority" was probably the old RETMA manufacturing consortium that set
the then-standards for tubes and many other electronic components.

That seems to be the case (although it seems to be EIA, not RETMA for
this.)

That brings me back to clarifying my original question:

What publication has the "official master list" of EIA tube base
diagrams?

Googling around the net brought up some websites but they tend to be
LESS comprehensive than the ARRL list. (Although there are a couple of
databases like NJ7P's which have the wonderful feature of being able to
get a lit of all tubes with a given base, and there was one German
website that offered a similar feature although in a more graphical
(and maybe less useful!) form.)

I think it's possible that the number-only bases in the ARRL tables
might not be EIA.

Tim.