On 4-Dec-2003, starman randomly pounded his keyboard and
ended up generating:

As you may know, there's an SX-88 on Ebay. The pictures show it still
has the original paper capacitors like the 'Tiny Chiefs' and 'Black
Beauties', which are known to become leaky. Should a valuable radio like
the '88' be run with these caps' and possibly damage an irreplacable
componant, such as an I.F. transformer? Would it lessen the value if it
was recapped?

IMHO you are the only one who can answer that question.

There has been lots of debate over the value of keeping radios as original
as possible vs.replacing the known bad components in order to make it
useable.

In my case, I use my radios which means they get repaired using currently
available parts. There are others who fervently believe a rare unit such as
this should be kept in as original condition as possible. By extension, this
means the radio sits on a shelf and is preserved for future generations to
appreciate. Both views are correct as different people have different
values.

You could, of course, go the route of stuffing new components into the old
cases. I've done this on the electrolytics on an SX-28. But unless you are
very talented, it may end up looking like... well, cut up parts that were
glued back together.

You could also cause more problems during re-capping by making mistakes and
blowing something else up.

I think we could all agree that you should NOT run the radio with the
original Black Beauties in it. The rest is up for you to decide.