Sander deWaal wrote:
said:
You say to this second hand furniture dealer, "Those two 1930's
kitsch
oil heaters gathering dust against the back there will never sell,
my
good man."
He tugs his forelock. "Mebbe, Guv, mebbe. But they mebbe clean up
nice
for firescreen."
"Firescreens, eh? Her ladyship might like that! A tenner do you?"
"Bless you, Guv. I'll just have Billy throw them in the back of the
Range Rover."
"Here's your money but don't disturb Billy. I'll carry them out
myself."
And then, just as you have the ESL57, dusty but in good nick, that
you
just bought for a tenner, in the car, you wake up...
Andre Jute
Life's a bitch, and then you die
LOL!!! Did that actually happen to you, Andre? ;-)
--
Sander de Waal
" SOA of a KT88? Sufficient. "
Besides having good judgement, I'm one of the luckiest guys in the
world, otherwise I wouldn't be here writing this. I was given a pair of
ESL57. I was given the set of Quad II/22 that were the Philips design
studio reference (they're being kept for my retirement). But I still
have that dream of the ESL mistaken for heaters...
There was a very funny discussion on the Joenet once; it exposed all
the trans-Atlantic misunderstandings. It started with me writing to
some agreeable chap who had just found something insanely great in a
dumpster that I envied him, surrounded by all those old Dynacos and
other gear, being able to pick something out of a dumpster and all
those super garage sales we heard about and envied. I added that I had
never as much as seen a Radford then under discussion on the Joenet in
a separate thread.
Well, you never saw such an explosion of sour bile. It turned out the
Americans didn't have it all that easy finding good stuff, and even
before the rise of Ebay a lot of what they did find was pre-wrecked and
expensive. The lucky guy, who had a track record of being walking past
the right dumpsters, was vilified as a scavenger who didn't share...
It turned out the Americans were envious of us Europeans, and
especially the British. They thought we just ordered classic gear by
picking up the phone. I had just come off the phone from Haden
Boardman, who didn't sound at all confident of finding me a good one of
whatever I wanted, or even a rebuildable one. "All gone to Japan," he
said. I knew that already. The best pair of QII I own were reimported
from Japan. But the Americans insisted. It turned out they had been
passing around a copy of HFN&RR which carried, in the news section at
the front somewhere, a small picture of a Leak on the open tailgate of
a Range Ranger. Beyond it you could vaguely make out a whole row of
Range Rovers with open tailgaites. The Americans pored over this piccie
and totally misinterpreted it. They thought British audiophiles went
to this "meadow fayre" and bought for pennies from distressed
gentlefolk insanely great audio gear.
They were *very* disillusioned when I gave the name, address and
telephone number of the dealer who owned the first Range Rover,
together with the information that he not only knew the value of the
Leak precisely but asked a premium for it having been in the magazine!
(Of course on top of the premium for the upkeep of his Range Rover.)
Even for lucky guys it is no longer easy. I know where there is a pair
of carefully used, long since dustsheeted--and therefore virtuallly new
ESL57. This year it will be 25 years that I have been trying to buy
them. "Then leave them to me in your will!"
Andre Jute
Quad ESLs - 57 or 63?
Hybrid Mode
