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Valve ID

V

Vinny

pfm Member
Entirely curiosity again...………………..I bought them for peanuts, unidentified beyond valve type.

Military box and markings - CV4003 - KB/QDD, 631, R7D3. The box has a packing date of September 1980. The actual triodes are unlike anything that I have seen elsewhere - the "box" (the anode I believe) is a huge box with no flanges or obvious join, as though it was formed from a tube.

QD rather than QDD, would be EEV Stafford, but more than that has defeated me and Google.

R7D3 could be a Mullard code - Mitcham factory, 1967 or 1977, April, 3rd week. The 631 could be a cock-up which should have been a change code I63?

Anyone want to suggest manufacturer and manufacture date?
 
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That is a simple question with no simple answer.

Mullard have a blind following, as does Telefunken - the "best" valves are Mullard valves and the older the better - that is what the sheep are told, believe and act upon. Some sheep seem to have insane amounts of spare ££.

On the Bay you have NOS (unused) valves and used, so that is one reason for price differential. Age is another and all Mullard valves have a date code, plus the logo and box designs change so that age can be judged from those. Mullard, towards the end of the valve era (the early 70's and later), out-sourced as they closed valve-making capacity, so there is another reason for price differences. Mullard, for most of their life as a brand were Philips and Philips ran countless factories and branded their outputs as was required to suit sales of Mullard, Philips, Adzam and other Philips-owned brands, plus distributor labels such as Pinnacle and Zaerix. Different brands/factories also have a greater or lesser reputation, the highest reputation being with Blackburn UK.

The Mullard trademark has also been licenced or sold to one of the current factories (Czech republic??????), so Mullard valves are being made again, even if they aren't, if you see what I mean.

And so on and so on.

The major factor though is a combination of lunacy and gullibility.

The two here cost me £20 inc P&P. Good deals are there to be had, if you have the time and inclination to browse often enough and are careful to check what things are or might actually be - I also have some very, very nice black plate RCA 5751 - 6 for £60. This evening 4 off NOS Siemens ECC83 sold for £77 - I will not pay more than about £20 for a valve and I was outbid by £2 - somebody got a huge bargain compared to what they should have sold for. For me it is the temptation of getting a bargain, not that I want or need more valves :)
 
I’ve got two CV4003s coded 631, but they look like these.

48284423882_52ed232781_b.jpg
 
That's the ones Marchbanks - huge box anodes - selling for insane money. PROBABLY a Mullard Mitcham date code.
Sound sublime here with RCA 5751 in the phono stage but very very like many others as a standalone cathode follower - I ran through several yesterday and as cathode follower (for line level sources, in my case just CD), lots of ECC83/CV4003/5814A/6189 sounded all but identical in my Croft.
 
Vinny said:
That is a simple question with no simple answer.

Mullard have a blind following, as does Telefunken - the "best" valves are Mullard valves and the older the better - that is what the sheep are told, believe and act upon. Some sheep seem to have insane amounts of spare ££.

On the Bay you have NOS (unused) valves and used, so that is one reason for price differential. Age is another and all Mullard valves have a date code, plus the logo and box designs change so that age can be judged from those. Mullard, towards the end of the valve era (the early 70's and later), out-sourced as they closed valve-making capacity, so there is another reason for price differences. Mullard, for most of their life as a brand were Philips and Philips ran countless factories and branded their outputs as was required to suit sales of Mullard, Philips, Adzam and other Philips-owned brands, plus distributor labels such as Pinnacle and Zaerix. Different brands/factories also have a greater or lesser reputation, the highest reputation being with Blackburn UK.

The Mullard trademark has also been licenced or sold to one of the current factories (Czech republic??????), so Mullard valves are being made again, even if they aren't, if you see what I mean.

And so on and so on.

The major factor though is a combination of lunacy and gullibility.

The two here cost me £20 inc P&P. Good deals are there to be had, if you have the time and inclination to browse often enough and are careful to check what things are or might actually be - I also have some very, very nice black plate RCA 5751 - 6 for £60. This evening 4 off NOS Siemens ECC83 sold for £77 - I will not pay more than about £20 for a valve and I was outbid by £2 - somebody got a huge bargain compared to what they should have sold for. For me it is the temptation of getting a bargain, not that I want or need more valves :)
Click to expand...

Thanks, good advice. I bought some rca command 5751 from the US at reasonable prices but they seem to go for crazy money in the UK. I guess as you say it’s a waiting game on eBay.
 
I have never used a Telefunken valve - check prices for anything that you'd trust and bear in mind my £20 limit...………………………...
 
Somewhere near Slough there is a landfill with the contents of the old GEC McMichael factory valve store, it was full of CV valves.
Dumped in 1985 and with stock back to the war :(
 
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