Tube faking and wine faking have a long tradition. There are some REAL professional companies faking tubes in a way, which will make you fall off your chair if you only knew. For instance I know of a company in Switzerland, who has access to real (NOS) tube printing tools (for the glass) and re-printed boxes.
There is a German company, who offered on Ebay to professionally re-work and gold plate tube pins of ECC tubes, so they look like new again. I do not say this is good or bad, but I want to point out here, this is possible.
Also the fakes can be 25 or 50 years old, like the ones from a (still existing) Swiss company who re-printed cheap tubes with expensive brands by 10.000's. These may have had many owners (for instance five owners, in 40 years) before they are for sale in the internet, where we all see them, and where you think you spot the once in your life opportunity, waiting for YOU there.
So the situation is, you can get really old tubes, in fungus boxes, with dust of 50 years on it, and inside is the fake job by an unknown company who did so half a century ago.
However, many fakes are done a bit stupid. Like fakers buy used TFK ECC83 on Ebay (with the diamond <> mark in the bottom.) and then re stamp them as Telefunken ECC803S, with a new printed box. Make the box a bit old and dusty, and there you are, your good old ECC803S from somebodies uncle who just died. Without guarantee, and no returns of course, because that's normal in Ebay, right? Well it pays off, since mint condition Telefunken ECC803 costs up to 1500 Euro each (as I write this in 2011). Some people always buy it, and think they have the deal of their life for only 500€ for a matched pair. It's just those fakes I add here when I can get hold of a picture. Just for the fun of it, and for just showing how some simple details tell the truth.
An interesting situation is when there was this really huge batch of faked TESLA ECC803 in 2006. I issued a warning on the largest www.non-moderated-Gossip Forum, called: Audio Asylum. Guess what that sparked! Oh, they LOVED it. Everybody was poking into it, and it generated a private email list for myself, with qualified people, to whom I communicated the rest of the inside information. THEN...... in the meantime, .the original faking person was reading this too, and started a dispute with me via email, under a false email address. (I didn't know him, because I bought the tubes via another dealer!). After sending this out to my private mailing list, there was a person who recognized his writing style. So that is how I find out his identity. For who knows him, his name starts with an L, and ends with an O. Then I asked my dealer the simply question: Did you get those tubes from "L....O", and his answer was... Yes! So that is how the case got cleared.
Now comes an interesting the learning experience. After posting that warning, I had several tube dealers asking to buy those fake tubes, and offer me some profit on the the batch. It were so many, I realized how sick some people are, and I learned a few names of dealers I would never buy something from. I decided not to sell any of those, and return the whole lot to the seller (who took them back - no problem). Six weeks after, I noticed a few times larger batches of "unprinted JJ ECC803S" were for sale by obscure sellers on Ebay.
Another USA company of excellent reputation got screwed also with the Fake TESLA's and we stayed in contact about it. They decided to wipe off the printing completely, and sell them as JJ without printing. Which is what they are indeed.
Not only JJ tubes are used to fake expensive tubes, though the JJ are quite popular for this purpose. I think that's because they're cheap. Still any other low cost tube can be used for it also. It has been common practice amongst fakers, to put EI tubes into reprinted Philips boxes. This is obvious, because these tubes are made on Philips tools, and JJ on old Telefunken look-alike tools.
Another source is the rejects of the tube factories, struggling to survive, and that don't pay their employees well. Think what it means for a person with a low salary, when his boss tells him to dispose those 5000 pieces audio tubes, that have quality issues. What would he do? This amount fits in the trunk of his car. So he says: Yes boss, I put them in my car, and drive it to the junk yard for you. Then sell it for 3$ / each to a faker. It means 15.000$ tax free money for those people in the factory chain. It means $35.000 profit for the faker when he sells them for $10 each on the large auction site where all gold diggers are looking for nuggets. Then, imagine that is done in countries where $35000 is a five year's salary. So do you really think this man throws these tubes away?
A newer way of faking is getting popular now. Since NOS prices go up anyway, people buy NOS tubes, in possibly nicest looking boxes. Then use them for years, and after that put them back into their boxes, and sell them on an auction as NOS again, and likely make a profit even. Or, some have for instance used Telefunken in their amplifier, run for thousands of hours. Then buy a pair of NOS with boxes, swap the tubes, and when they are lucky pay almost nothing for changing old tubes into new. However under the microscope you can see that have been unplugged 20 times.
So how to detect real NOS? If you are unexperienced, it's hard. A good technician can not be fooled with the electrical data coming from a parametric tube tester, such as the Russian L3-3 or it's digital version, the Amplitrex AT1000. (no change to pick those out with a Hickock). Myself I know the "feel" of real old glass which has never been heated since 60 years. It is a bit slippery. There is some layer on it, which evaporates after first heat up. Sometimes there is a flash of vinegar smell when the glass heats up first time after 50 years. Also the print is often softened from storage, which effects disappears after first heating, that is also proof. I know how RFT tube pins feel on my thumb. They are scratchy. So I can spot any RFT blind, no matter what they print on the glass. TESLA E88CC Gold pin has often a somewhat smaller pin diameter. You just need to know a lot about tubes, that helps a lot ;) There is the smell of a tube box from the 1950's, it is definitely another one as from the 1980's. Paper detoriates over time a lot, and the smell of that detoriation is extremely characteristic. I heat up the empty boxes with a hot air gun to extract that smell. If you want to do this yourself, you can really learn quickly to keep apart old boxes from reprints. A re-printed box has no detoriation smell, even when made dirty and dusty. When you have many tubes of the same kind, you can document the burn-in effect of long stored tubes. That proves they are NOS. And last but not least, the human factor. I know which of my suppliers I can trust unseen, and which needs more control.
So now enjoy the pictures coming!
Please don't:
- Write emails about tubes from your collection, to ask if they are fake or not. Also don't write emails about Ebay auctions. I used to kindly answer such emails, but the chat sessions that result only seem to have wasted my time.
Please do:
- Post questions like this to the tube forums in the internet. For instance Audioasylum is a great place for techno babble and discussions about opinions. Thanks for understanding! Where ever you buy, specially auction web sites, remember this: What appears too good to be true, is most probably just that.
- Also take this advice: A large part of the normal market price, should be there one day before the auction ends. If not, that is because people with money and knowledge about those tubes, are not bidding. If these stay away, you better stay away too.
- Send pictures of fakes tubes when you have some, so we can make this overview more interesting.
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