Craigslist, gotta love it! 8 B7971s

[Tim Laing]

I had a pure luck moment on Craigslist, was looking for French doors, nothing of interest. Then while I was at it, I looked for Tektronix, nothing interesting. Then electronic test equipment.... Down the listings, and posted about four weeks ago were Burroughs B7971s. Selling as untested but working about 20 years ago when removed from working industrial screw counting machine that was scrapped. There were up to 8 tubes available. $100 for 2, $350 for all 8. I contacted the seller who was in Columbus OH about 85 miles from me. He was real nice. If he didn't have to ship them I could have them for $300. We also agreed I could test them before purchase. So I got off work at 6 AM go home get some sleep and the wife and road trip! I went to his place of work where I was amazed to find they custom manufacture flow meters in house. The flow meters are completely designed and assembled including the circuit boards right in their moderate sized building. Some even go to NASA for use with their launch systems. He is the circuit and circuit board designer. Neat!!
Well I got a complete tour, met the owners dog etc. It seems like a great place to work!
I brought my lambda dual 0-250 power supply along and the testing proceeded. 7 good, one with a dead vertical segment probably open weld. So he said $250 for the 8. He didn't have change for a $20 so we agreed on $247 as I didn't have any other change. I am a very happy camper.
He also really likes the old 60s HP nixie volt meters and counters. He has taken apart and repaired the LDR coupling units in these units. He has lots of other geek electronics as well. On top of all this he works only about 7 miles from where our son and his family live. So we went out and had a nice dinner afterwards with the family. Now that was one Nixielisious day! I think we are going to have a good friendship going down the road. Tim Laing.

Sent from my iPhone

[Nicholas Stock]

That Tim, is a really great story! Very fortuitous for many reasons!

Cheers,

Nick

Sent from my iPhone

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[Mich...@aol.com]

Super kewl!

 

Michail Wilson
206-920-6312

[Gene Segal]

What a great story, thank you for sharing!

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[robin bussell]

On 02/03/2016 08:31, Tim Laing wrote:
> I had a pure luck moment on Craigslist,

Great story! My best buy for B7971 was finding two of them on ebay as
"british union flag pattern nixies", I ended up winning for £80 which is
about $50 each I suppose.

Cheers,
Robin.