PICTURES OF TUBES THAT ARE NOT WHAT YOU THINK THEY ARE

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 Geneva, who has access to real (NOS) tube printing tools (for the glass) and re-printed boxes.

There is a German company, who professionally re-works and re-plates tube pins of ECC tubes, so they look like new again. So these are hard to recognise on first sight.

Also the fakes can be 25 or 50 years old, like the fakes from Geneva can be older, and they may have had many owners (for instance five owners, in 20 years) before they are on the auction site where we all see them, and where you think you spotted something very great, for a very low price.

However, most fakes are done quite stupidly by single persons, and it is 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 show the truth.

An interesting situation is when there was this large batch of faked TESLA ECC803 in 2006. I issued a warning on a largest USA "old women gossip tubes forum" called audio Asylum. Guess what that sparked! They LOVED this bla bla. First.......the original faking person started a dispute with me via email, under a false email address. ( I didn't know him, I bought the tubes from a dealer!). After communicating this email address with some of my friends, there was one who could tell me who that person was. So that is how I find out his identity. Now comes 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. Well, I decided not to sell any of those, and return those to my dealer address (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.

Not only JJ tubes are used to fake expensive tubes. Any other low cost tube can be used for it also. It has been common practice amongst fakers, to put EI tubes into reprinted expensive brand 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 diamonds. 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?

Another fake" is what is seen often now, people buy NOS tubes, use them for years, and after that put them back into their boxes, and sell them on an auction as "NOS tubes from an old Radio store". etc.

Please don't:

  • write emails about your own tube collection, and ask if they are fakes or not.

Please do:

  • address questions like this to the tube forums in the internet. For instance Audioasylum is great for any kind of techno babble, because it is virtually unmoderated, so you can post any kind of stuff there. Thanks for understanding! Where ever you buy, specially auction websites, remember this: What appears too good to be true, is most probably just that.
  • Send pictures of fakes tubes when you have some, so we can make this overview more interesting.

 

REAL ECC803S Telefunken

These have ALLWAYS all of this:

  • Gold pins
  • Made in Germany
  • Datecode starts with a letter U
  • Small plates with a pip in the middle, indicating frame grid tubes.
  • Diamond <> in the bottem.
FAKED DATECODES
for ECC803S
ECC803S: 72056, 8104x, 32058.
Good datecodes start with letter "U"

ECC803S TFK

This quad was sold on Auction Website for 901 Euro, April 2008.

  • No gold pins
  • Made in Germany is missing
  • Genuine TFK ECC803S Datecodes start with letter "U"
  • BEWARE FOR THE DATECODE 72056 as on this tube
  • Inside is not the famous frame grid tube, but a normal long plate ECC83
  • Worth only 10% compared to the real one

ECC803S TESLA

ECC803S TESLA

Sold on Auction Website

  • Logo is too big, and silly looking
  • This his kind of speckled "paint" was never used by Tesla.
  • Top printing (on getter) is missing
  • Made in Slovakia? Oops. It was called Czech Republic at the days these tubes were made.
  • There is the JJ or Tesla frame grid tube inside. It was called E83CC. Not ECC83S.

ECC803S TELEFUNKEN

Sold on Auction Website

  • No gold pins
  • Made in Germany is missing
  • Genuine TFK ECC803S Datecodes start with letter "U"
  • Inside is not the famous frame grid tube, but a normal long plate ECC83
  • Worth only 10% compared to the real one

ECC803S TELEFUNKEN

Sold on Auction Website

  • Claims to be completely different seller, but obviously the same photographer was at work here ;)
  • BEWARE FOR THE DATECODE 8104x as on this tube
  • Genuine TFK ECC803S Datecodes start with letter "U"

ECC803S TESLA

  • TESLA logo missing
  • Inside is NOT the system of the TESLA ECC803S. Systems like this can be found in E83CC.

 

ECC803S + E83CC Telefunken

ECC803S and E83CC are not the same tubes. Now you find those part number together here on one tube. Ha ha. This fake goes into the hall of shame, for the faker with the least knowledge about tubes.

  • Besides the gold is very shiny. Too shiny. It was gold plated probably just yesterday.
  • BEWARE FOR THE DATECODE 32058 as on this tube.

E83CC RSD

 

  • This is a funny one. RSD used to re-brand the tubes, and print RSD on it. E83CC is a TESLA designation for a frame grid tube, and what I see in there is a non-frame grid tube. Is this a Fake? judge for yourself, but for me personally the question is, what was printed on there BEFORE it was repaced by RSD.

EL34S by SHUGUANG. So called "Big bottle" EL34S / 6CA7S.

There are penthodes, and beam tretrodes, and these work not the same way. EL34 is pentode, and 6L6 is a beam tetrode. Beam tetrodes have not as good curves as pentodes, and they are lower cost to produce. I had this broken pair of Shuguang "Big botlle" EL34S, that broke down in an EL34 amplifier after short time. So decided to open the tube and look inside, perhaps find the reason for the defect. I tested the filament current before breaking the glass, the tubes had correct 1.5 Amps for EL34. Still EL34 is a pentode, and what came out was this beam tetrode.

Picture series here

On the box it says: "Shuguang Golden Dragon power tubes are the result of a collaboration of British Audiofiles, engineers, and the Shuguang tube factory"

E80F TELEFUNKEN

We do not picture them here, because of copyright. The picture was found on the website of a tube dealer. (who says he wants to asked first )

E80F (=EF86)

  • We have seen originally boxed TFK E80F which is a higher quality EF86.
  • HOWEVER these are rebranded TESLA tubes. These have also the "famous" 32058 datecode as we have seen on rebranded tubes before.
  • Here is a picture of the REAL TFK. They have long glass. The fakes are short glass TESLA EF86.

This is a very raw fake, because these are plain Chinese tubes in a new printed Tesla boxes. For sale from Slovakia. Letters are printed on the glass with a cheap letter stamp of the kind that you buy in book store to print your name. They just used some white paint.

Can't hide the Shuguang inside pieces with that. Check here for KT88 pictures of (real!) TESLA and SHUGUANG. So these are plain SHUGUANG KT88 (cheapest KT88 that excist) and printed those as NOS Tesla (worth 450$ for a Quad).

I was send this picture by someone who found those on Ebay, and who was afraid they were fakes. Well, yes they are fakes. Inside is the Chinese KT88 system clearly visible.

What is even worce about these, they were offered as NOS, and they are in the box with a bad vacuum getter. This kind of getter wear out comes from use. It is no "air" inside, but tube outgassing which cuases this coloring.

Conclusion: These are not NOS Genelex Golden Lion. These are heavily used tubes, only 10% of lifetime left. Faked tubes from China.

This tube I received from my friend Frank Geeraerts from Belgium, as a gift, because he knows I collect "fake". pictures. Another very raw fake. As you know, in China product faking is a national hobby.

Wow! My respect for the nice faking of the special material GEC sticker, which was (UNTIL NOW) seen as proof for genuine MO Valves.

Only the inside of the tube is not so nice faked, inside is a plain stupid Chinese fire cracker.

Do you see the white speckles in the back of the tube? That is chipped off cathode coating. When little particles of this come in between the grids, it sparkles inside the tube and it gives the famous fire cracker sound from your speakers. Alos the rings around the getter flash show that there is some gas in the tube.

On the back is stamped: KT88 / 6550. Must be the latest invention. A 6550 that you can use as KT88?

Tube tube I also received from my friend Frank Geeraerts from Belgium. He removed it himself from control electronics for elevators. E80CC is a SQ tube, something half similar like ECC82, but E80CC is tighter specified, larger plates, higher gain, and many things more. Also E80CC is 10.000 hours, SQ specified, and has almost twide the size of an ECC82, and E80CC has more plate dissipation, and twice the filamant current. I remember the days where you could pick them up for 3€. Now they are 40€. (so called "NOS" on Ebay), and why not ask 60€ or 80€ , I am sure someone will pay that too.

The pictured tube has inside plates that remind me of large plate ECC82, and it doesn't look like an E80CC at all. Still the filament current is the same as with a real E80CC, and obviously the cathode is larger than an ECC82 also.

So is this a fake? I don't really know, but for me this tube is useless. I mean, a fake is a tube with false brand and/or printing on it. However, I seriously doubt for this "CV" E80CC an original SQ datasheet was ever made, and also I don't think that with those miniature plates, the original E80CC specs can be kept at all.

Knowing that CV is no manufacturer, my question is: what is the real part number of this tube, and what factory made it.

Here is a compare picture of E80CC (the real one) and this funny CV E80CC. Here is a nice picture of the Tungsram (original) E80CC version.