Up for bids on Ebay I have two AWA Radiolettes from the 1930s.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/261191645412.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/261191647231.

Wow! Those prices!

My grandfather had one one those, bought new and used for listening to news and sports until the end of his life in the 1960s. I think it probably went to the Salvation Army for nothing.

Maven

Going prices for radios have dropped a lot over the last year or so and this is pretty much across the board. Fewer people are buying spares too. I've seen the radios I sold go for double the price a few years ago and white marbled ones go for upto $8,000 and I even saw a mint jade model go for $21,000. The bottom line is that the correction was probably needed. As great as they are I don't think ever inflating prices is good as it shuts the mainstream out of a worthwhile hobby. I am happy with what I received though.

a few years ago and white marbled ones go for upto $8,000

There was a white marble one on eBay just recently. Seller (a dealer) set a starting price of $4650 and got zero bids. (Item number: 130878107261)

"The overall condition of this set is excellent, and it makes for a stunning display. The radio has been serviced and works really well. The case is free from cracks, warps, scratches etc, and has recently been buffed up to a high state of shine. There is a minor case repair to the right hand side where a round hole had been cut in the past for a switch. This has been expertly repaired and is only noticable on close inspection. There is also a fine stress crack to the back panel [see photos]. The dial is unusual in that it does not have a burn hole caused by the globe, and is in great shape. Overall a fine and very collectable vintage radio."

I think the general trend is that high starting prices usually get no bids. Even run of the mill radios on there at the moment like the STC Eiffel Tower marked at $95.00 have little hope of getting a bid despite such radios attracting higher prices at the end of an auction where the starting price is, say, $15.00.

Bidders want to be involved in the auction and they want to fight for the item in the dying seconds. If an STC Eiffel Tower is going to have a starting price of $95.00 then the seller probably should be offering the radio for sale rather than auction and with the option of making an offer.

I saw the Radiolette you mentioned. The thing is, that radio would have fetched about the same money if the seller had started the bids at around $200.00. And on a radio with the reputation of a Fisk Radiolette the bidders won't even care that the cabinet had a hole in it. They'll still pay the good money if the radio is in overall good nick.

I agree. Any time I'm asked about selling on eBay I always recommend against high starting prices. As you say, bidders like to be in the action.

There are situations when a Buy It Now price can be useful, too.

It's a problem that seems to be showing it's ugly face in every hobby - extremely high prices that exclude most people from the hobby. With the hobby of insulator collecting, you would have to mortgage your house to buy an insulator that someone would've payed $100 for twenty years ago. Prices have just skyrocketed (beyond $20,000 US for the rarer/desirable insulators!), which makes it hard for beginners and anyone on a budget.

That's one reason why I dropped out of the hobby - go bankrupt to buy a coloured piece of electrical glass (that will sit on a dusty shelf) or spend $5 on a nice CRT television that I can get many hours of viewing pleasure out of... Hmm, decisions, decisions...

Chris

That's a similar story to the Radiolettes. Back when I started collecting no-one wanted them because most people thought they were ugly and the four inch speaker in them didn't exactly produce a HiFi sound.

They only became desirable when the next wave of collectors came along which included people that only liked coloured Bakelite. Nothing wrong with choosing a niche or getting a return on investment of course. I'm all for a free market apart from when things go insane.

I am hoping that the dip in median pricing allows me to score some good radios before the end of the year.

I could be quite wrong, but I get the feeling that the boom market for sellers of the older radios may have peaked. I hear of more and more senior citizens off-loading their collections as they move into smaller digs and there's the deceased estates of those who didn't sell before they died adding to the number of sets in the market.

As the collectors (and the hoarders) age and die in coming years I feel we may be in for a prolonged buyers' market for the older valve stuff, with price expectations falling accordingly.

To get a better bead on this I'd have to know the average age of today's purchasers. If the pool of old radios is simply being recycled among seniors, with no significant sales to younger generations, then I'd say we are seeing the inevitable end of high prices as a general expectation.

As with all categories of collectables, there are the "evergreens" that continue appeal to a wide market and hold their value accordingly, but the time comes inevitably when older stuff doesn't interest the cashed-up and keen generation.

I have seen this happen with classic cars. As an owner of many classic cars, and an organiser of and participant in untold numbers of show and shine days, recently told me: "Kids today are not interested in the old stuff, especially anything with running boards. Their interest starts in the late 60's now."

And speaking of boom markets and cars, look at what happened with the Ford Falcon GTHO market bubble: $800,000 a few years ago; scratching to get even half of that today.

True, the GFC made a dent in people's wealth and panicked those with a stash of cash, but during such crises there's usually a flight of capital to investments in safe harbours. If these items were considered safe bets, then their value would not have crashed. Every bubble must burst eventually, which is good news for the budget buyer.

I tend to agree with GTC. Although fairly new to collecting valve radios, the collectors I've met or had dealings with all have one thing in common - they all have fond memories of the old radios in daily use when they were young, including myself.

With transistors becoming increasingly common during the 1960's the old valve radios probably won't appeal to many under 50's, hence the aging demographic of collectors.

Being a child of the 60's myself, I neither consider myself old nor young but after attending the recent AHRS meeting in Sydney I felt decidedly out of place. Most people my age look at me very strangely when I tell them what I do for a hobby. If this theory proves to be true, then watch out for a boom in prices for transistor radios from the 60's and 70's.

I sadly have to agree with a declining interest in anything older. With insulators (again), many collectors started out because they used to see miles and miles of coloured glass on telegraph lines during their childhoods. Now, with everything going underground or wireless, there won't be the same allure to children to collect these 'mysterious glass things' that held up the wires for many years.

It's just like what scraps said about radios - there won't be the same fascination for current generations. This generation of youth (which I am regrettably a part of) will probably grow up collecting iPods, iPads and iPhones - items which bring back memories of the 'good old days'.

And scraps, I know how you feel! Very few teenagers collect anything as 'uncool' as vintage electronics and televisions. For most teenager collectors, it would be something like Coca-cola merchandise or football memorabilia.

Chris

I had a valve radio in my bedroom, an AWA Radiola Champion which I swiped from the kitchen, for a time whence a teeniebopper which I used to listen to the footy on though my parents had this leather-bound transistorised table radio which I remember well though I don't remember the brand. I do remember the large 9 volt battery being replaced every so often and remember listening to Sammy Sparrow (2UE) on it before being dragged kicking and screaming to school each weekday.

I think it was the valve radio that interested me most in the latter years of my childhood though and a definite contributor to where I am at now with collecting even though that radio is no longer around.

There's a lot of competing pressures amongst collectors now I think. The cost of living is horrendous. Two of Australia's greatest living conditions have been eroded in recent years, they being the cheapest fuels in the western world and the cheapest food in the western world. we took a lot for granted but corporate greed sure as hell has sorted that out. The carbon tax and sheer incompetence from the Commonwealth Government hasn't helped either. A lot of money is being wasted on symbolic and idealistic gestures and none is being spent on nation-building. This means fewer jobs, a higher cost of living, higher than necessary taxation and the flow-on effect to the priorities ordinary people have when it comes to how they spend and save their weekly wage.

Those who have used superannuation and golden handshakes to finance radio acquisitions have probably exhausted their warchests and are probably about to plan culling their collections in part or full.

There's evidence (if only through new members here) that there is a lot of interest in radio collecting but are there enough new collectors to take over the reigns from those who have had collections for a long time? Maybe, maybe not.

All this leads to what others in this thread have mentioned about an over-supply of radios and insufficient cashed-up buyers.

At the end of last year I started to do something I swore blind for more than twenty years I'd never do - sell any of my radios. Although I am not just selling. I'm buying too but just being more careful about what I am buying. I am also using the sale of excess stock to buy some cabinets to display the radios I plan on keeping for eternity and a photo of one such cabinet is in this thread.

I've learned that lifestyle changes play a big role here. Before I had many very good radios but I was collecting them in order to build a large collection. Now I am placing more of an emphasis on collecting radios that I like to look at. At the moment my collection is half the size it was a year ago but I appreciate it four times as much and I've passed on radios and parts to people who will use them rather than letting them sit on my shelves gathering dust.

One thing I would always like to be sure of is that radio collections and associated paraphernalia never end up on the tip.

I think you are on to something when you mention superannuation. The sustained large-scale crookery in the stock market and funds management industries I think sent a lot of people into self-managed superannuation or other DIY investment ideas such as negative-geared property on the Gold Coast. Some of these people would have looked at collectables generally (such as fine art), and some who just like radios might have talked themselves into believing they were a reliable investment. It's a good argument to make to the wife, anyway.

Now a lot of people have been caught out with imaginary investments, and the equities market is looking better, so there is less appetite for "investment grade" collectables which have proven to be of quite uncertain value.

I believe the real quality treasures, based on technical excellence and aesthetic appeal, will always have a solid appreciation of value, but not necessarily much greater than inflation. But middle-of-the-road items (like my Philips 123) will probably only have sentimental value to those old enough to remember relying on them when broadcast radio was the latest and the greatest.

Maven