"Clay Nicolsen" wrote in message
...
The SX-88 is the holy grail of Hallicrafters communications receivers.
It
is the rarest, and most desirable to collectors, and there are a great
many
enthusiastic collectors of Hallicrafters radios. While it is absolutely
not
in the same class, performance-wise, as an R-390a, it is a very fine 20
tube
double conversion receiver. And, there were what...30,000+ R-390a's
made?
As was mentioned in a previous reply, it is extremely scarce. I have
read
that only 60 were (if memory serves) sold. $595 was a boatload of money
in
1954, and this radio was only available for two years. There were
approximately 1,000 Hammarlund Pro-310's sold, and one of those in good
condition will fetch near $2,000. I have seen a junk 88 parts radio
bring
over $1,000. I will be very, very surprised indeed if this one doesn't
go
well north of $5,000.

Clay

It may be a vintage set, but anyone who'd pay
$5000 for a 50 YO radio, let alone $2000 should
be put into a rubber room IMHO - grin ; )

In article , "heavywater"
writes:

It may be a vintage set, but anyone who'd pay
$5000 for a 50 YO radio, let alone $2000 should
be put into a rubber room IMHO - grin ; )

You think $5000 for an SX-88 is bad, look at this.

'Bout two years ago an unbuilt Heath AT-1 kit showed up on eBay. Still in the
unopened original box, dated 1956, amking it one of the last ones made.

The AT- was Heath's first attempt a t a ham transmitter. 6AG7-6L6, with 5U4G
rectifier and link output. Final ran as a doubler on most bands and the
efficiency was awful - typically less than 10 watts out for 35 watts in. $29.95
50 years ago.

Final price of the auction: $5100. That's not a typo - five thousand one
hundred dollars.

73 de Jim, N2EY

This is basically the free enterprise system and whatever the market will bear
is what sets the price. What I don't comprehend is another situation. As an
example, last year, I was following the bidding on an Icom IC-2100H. I stopped
watching when the bidding got to $275 so I don't know how high it got. This
was the price for a used radio without warranty at the same time it was
available new, with warranty, at AES and elsewhere for $199. So if somebody is
obviously online, a few key clicks searching for the radio would have saved the
buyer over $75. Strange...

On 03 Aug 2003 17:32:56 GMT, (K9SQG) wrote:

This is basically the free enterprise system and whatever the market will bear
is what sets the price. What I don't comprehend is another situation. As an
example, last year, I was following the bidding on an Icom IC-2100H. I stopped
watching when the bidding got to $275 so I don't know how high it got. This
was the price for a used radio without warranty at the same time it was
available new, with warranty, at AES and elsewhere for $199. So if somebody is
obviously online, a few key clicks searching for the radio would have saved the
buyer over $75. Strange...

Yes, strange... OR shills at work(!)

It happens on ePay
That is why the e-mail lists are the best places to trade.
The free online classifieds are not bad too.

CUL8R
Spinach Inquisition