A Fisher tube receiver with AR-3as and an Empire table was the first system to awaken SAD in me. The first stereo I bought after that was an actually really good Pacific Stereo receiver, OLAs, a TD150, and a Shure M91ed.My, this little thread has had long legs here.
It's good to see the continuing interest in old audio gear outside of the enthusiast circles, especially as the youngsters today sadly tend to only listen to their phones. They have no idea how wonderful music at home once sounded. At one time, this stuff was the entertainment centerpiece of many a living room.
Ok ... I will share one of the many little tubed jewels from our collection.
This one does have the original box and owners manual. I picked it up at an auction about 30 years ago. The knucklehead seller snapped the dial cord lifting it out of the carton for photos. But it is a 30 minute fix I've done many times in the past, and we have the era-correct new white dial cord stock for whoever does it.
It is a Fisher 800C receiver, bought brand new in 1965 by an Air Force Colonel at PX. He was a doctor of some sort, perhaps medical. I will not name the original buyer's name, except to say his last name was not Bellows.
It has never been used. For whatever reason, the Colonel bought it and never used it. I do not know the Colonel's fate. It was sitting in a warehouse for decades, sealed. It is true new old stock equipment, with everything just as Avery Fisher packed it at their NYC factory in 1965, right down to the factory FM dipole antenna, and including the original sales receipt. It also has a rare dual line voltage capability, and can operate on 110 or 220 vac. Probably so that the Colonel could play it overseas as well as stateside.
Since acquiring it 30 years ago, it has remained in its original shipping container, exactly as shown here. I purchased it not to play, but as an investment, as I already have too many working tube instruments in service. But all it would need to safely operate is a re-cap of the electrolytics, and replacement of the flat pack selenium rectifier that supplies output bias and DC heating to the low level amp circuit. And it would sound exactly as Fisher intended it to sound six decades ago.
I am not going to say what I paid for it at auction 30 years ago. But I am fairly confident that I could sell it in 15 minutes to a far East audiophile for between $10 and $15,000 (maybe more), a fantastic multiple of what I paid for it. Just the brand new tubes alone are now probably worth at least a couple thousand dollars, including nine new Telefunken smooth plate 12AX7s, and a matched quad of Westinghouse 7591As (which are now impossible to find). Even the new dial lamps, being a rare fuse type size, are probably worth at least $100. And their scarcity and value are only going to go up.
I'll never hear it play. I'll likely pass it along to my son. It is already nearly 60 years old. I suspect it may someday wind up as a museum exhibit. We have several factory Fisher cabinets to display it in should that ever be needed.
But having several other working examples of both this model and others, I will say that the Fisher B and C series receivers were probably the finest sounding of the tubed stereo receiver era, and among the best and richest sounding stereo receivers ever made. They were certainly among the best selling. I understand that even beat up ones are now fetching $2,000+ when they do pop up. Which is amazing, considering I would often pick them up back in the day for well under $100 to save them from the curb.
We have many other tubed instruments about the house, that we run regularly, going back to the 1950s. And some other old vintage sandboxes, too. Even our intercom system from 1968 still works perfectly. I will try to post some other pictures of those things from time to time, as time and energy permits.
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