RadioBanter - View Single Post

January 7th 05, 04:39 PM

On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 10:28:28 UTC, PAMNO (N2EY) wrote:

In article ,
Leonard Martin writes:

A big question looms: Most boatanchors are the past "wish" radios of
people now in their 60s - 80s. Those people are often sitting on a
lifetime of savings and know they will soon be leaving this earth. If
they are ever to have the super radio of their teen years they must buy
it now, no matter what the price!

I'm sure that's true in many cases. But I know of more than a few BA folks who
are young enough that BAs were old when they were in their teens, yet they are
avid collectors/users/restorers.

Then there's the 2nd and 3rd generation effect. "Gramps was always
so happy playing with his KWM-2A; mom sold it after he died; I sure
wish I had one like it now that I'm rich."

Unlike catalin radios, boatanchors are seldom pretty.

I disagree! Most of them are incredibly beautiful!

Catalins are beautiful in the same way that $6.89 injection
molded brick-a-brack at Ocean City and Miami beach stores are
beautiful.

An SX-62, R/390, HQ-180 are beautiful in the functional, industrial
design sense.

The difference is that a hundred million people were "impressed"
with the look of a cheap plastic item and a few hundred are bidding
the price up. "Hey, that looks like grammie's kitchen radio.
Remember those old days?"

Most folk have never seen an SX-62 so there are proportionaly fewer
who are bidding on them. "What's that thing? It looks expensive."

The Catalin's, frankly, are cheap junk. When they stopped
working, most were tossed and replaced by another cheap radio.

SX-62's and other boatanchors were clearly something special and
even non-working examples were kept on the off chance that it could
be fixed or that a "collector" would want it.

I've said this before. I saw a Catalin go for $20,000 on the Bay.
That's about what twenty Alpha 374's sell for.

Imagine your house. You can have that $20,000 Catalin in the living
room or you can have industrial shelving on one wall in your
basement with Alpha 374's, 5 high and 4 wide.

Do you like Collins? How about 4 perfect KWS-1's lined up?

30 years ago, I visited a DX/Contest station. The guy had 3
operating positions with S-lines and 4 Henry 2K's in a rack. You
could duplicate that or get a Catalin.

I wonder if
boatanchors will still be appreciated--and valued--once the old guys who
learned to appreciate them as youths are gone?

Some will appreciate them, but probably not to the extent that people will pay
big bucks for them.

73 de Jim, N2EY