While I'm not ready to move to the usa just yet !! Cant help but Admire their old stuff and prices ! so many things we lack here in the way of old things and the volume of it to choose from ,,,,,,have a look at this swap meet ....see link and its rated G about radios and Electronics ,,

pete

https://youtu.be/NB1i5W44HJo

Speaking of which, has anyone bought from the USA and used a drop shipper ? A mate whose done a few and recommended Comgateway.
I'm looking at a few valve testers, the price of postage is double the price of the tester.

Unable to look at the video as my internet allocation nearing its end but know what you mean.

On a U.S forum related to lanterns a member put up some photos of the stuff for sale at a clearing sale of some sort.

Literally the 20's and 30's radios with turned legs, ornamented panels, coffin box radios just lined up in rows was just unbelievable.

I have rarely seen so many collectable radios all together in one place. Along with lots of pressure lanterns, lamps, old irons and tons of other collectable items.

Seen nothing like it in Australia ever.

I would cry if I was visiting the states and saw that stuff as there would be no way of getting anything back to Australia.

I would cry if I was visiting the states and saw that stuff as there would be no way of getting anything back to Australia.

I've often thought that if I ever visited the US or GB or even NZ and found something I thought should come back with me, I'd just pack it well and post it. It'd be cheaper and more convenient than dragging it onto a boat or plane as excess baggage and baggage handlers don't always treat bags with respect, leading to broken goodies.

On the expo, our RadioFest is similar but it is a smaller due to the RadioFest not offering all the 'side attractions' like the guitar amps, mixing consoles and the like - it is just radios, gramophones and phonographs, and related material, but lots of it.

If you want to see something like that in the flesh, come to the RadioFest on Sunday, 22nd September in Mitchell, ACT.

I know some here have made it to the ETF (Early Television Foundation)(private museum)(have made a few pilgrimages myself.) Anyway, a while back, manager, Steve, added a parking lot 'swap-meet' feature to the annual convention (count me in on one of those!) So, it must have been the first such year for this and I'm browsing through the mainly television-oriented items and there's this large audio item: ostensibly a very early Deco Altec studio monitor enclosure from 1946 (near the time of the founding of the company)(picture below.) There was no interest in this as A. it was not television related, and B. could not be transported with car. Knew it was Altec because it had large sticker on back panel with wiring diagram for '604' 15" coaxial speaker (the first proto version didn't have a suffix letter like later iterations: '604A', B, C, E,G,K..) It even still had manufacturing inspection tag giving date, model ('605'-'Federal'), and serial No. (54.) The interesting thing being that there is no online reference or pictures of this! a true historical orphan (though there is for the more ornate consumer version of cabinet.) Inside cabinet was a substitute Jensen coaxial (not a particularly valuable one) with a blown tweeter diaphragm.

In America the vintage radio and TV community is quite vast compared to Aus.
Mostly due to the availability and range of restoration prospects.
They have so much more to choose from. For instance they had colour TV in the late 50's.
I would love to get a hold of one of the Colour "Roundies" as a project.
System convertors are readily available in the US also.
Just the 240 to 110V to worry about.
I'm sure most of you have checked out the VideoKarma site.

I've often thought that if I ever visited the US or GB or even NZ and found something I thought should come back with me, I'd just pack it well and post it. It'd be cheaper and more convenient than dragging it onto a boat or plane as excess baggage and baggage handlers don't always treat bags with respect, leading to broken goodies.

It was more the large cabinet/upright radios with turned legs and scroll work that caught my eye. To get one properly boxed up so as to protect from damage and shipped over to Oz would cost a fortune.

Could only drool.

As has been remarked, the U.S vintage radio market is so much larger than here.

Oddly enough, postage from the US seems to be higher than from Canada. This was my experience about ten years ago. I am not sure if anything has changed since.

The US market is definitely larger than it is here. It's not so much what's available but the size of the customer base. The US has roughly 22 times the population of Australia so the number of buyers and sellers will be about the same proportion. We can just thank our lucky stars that we used to protect our industries with a huge tariff wall. If that hadn't happened our market would have been dominated by overseas products like it is now. We had so many radios that were unique to this part of the world.

Should that not read (particularly in relation to a lot of electrical stuff) "Overseas rubbish"?

My house was occupied (new) Easter 2013. In that time four electronic ballasts have died 3 CFL's and one LED light have never made it to their claimed life and one computer, has lasted 5 years while another with parts not from certain parts of SE Asia is Nineteen. There is a Thorn Twin Flouro (Ballast) 2 x 85 Watt (8 foot) no idea how old it is but the 100+ year old shed was not wired until 60's & it was second hand when installed.

Cooking wise, I did buy a grill with upper & lower hotplates; For some reason I bought extended warranty on it? Must have known something: It died before the extended warranty. Hob never made it past its normal warranty. Yet I have often sorted out minor issues with a friends Sunbeam toasters that are 1950's Bakelite; One her Mothers and they refuse to die (That's Quality).

Even the NBN stuff, as I have mentioned, made in SE Asia, and two LED floodlights sent back to point of sale, are and were, from an RFI point of view, about as quiet as a "Collin's Class" sub.

Power tools are just as bad: Mains, or Battery.

There is a Thorn Twin Flouro (Ballast) 2 x 85 Watt (8 foot) no idea how old it is but the 100+ year old shed was not wired until 60's & it was second hand when installed.

6 and 8 foot fluoro tubes cannot be got anymore and the ballasts haven't been available for at least ten years. The last batches of these lamps had to be imported from England by GE. I miss them because the lamps only had to be changed every ten - fifteen years. Most of those I came across had filament transformers rather than starters and these would be the fittings to have, as I haven't seen any S12 starters for a long, long time. S10 starters may start them but not in very cold weather.

There are some nice old sets in NZ and this site has some nice old TVs pete http://nzvintagetvradio.blogspot.com/

Photo uploaded to Post 6.

Marcc, you mentioned Sunbeam Toasters.
I'm very fond of my Sunbeam Radiant Heat toaster.
They were made when we had quality manufacturing in Aus and were designed to work very well and last decades.
Ours dates from the seventies and is still going strong. Slight adjustment on the torsion bar required every few years.
It's such a pity that we no longer make quality items like these.
Instead we have no choice but to buy poorly designed, badly made products from guess where.

Yeh! Quality is where every now and again it just needs a little extra cleaning & TLC : Garbage is where it dies before needing cleaning.