Ron Lawrence's "Radio Heaven"
My Tube Collection
I've been collecting tube for over 30 years, almost as long as I've been collecting radios. I started actively buying collectable tube back in the early 80s when my friend Ron Scranton
would load up his wife's Mercedes station wagon with goodies and come to Charlotte to visit and sell old radios and tube.
As much as I love collecting antique radios, I think I love tube collecting even more. One nice thing about them is that they're small, well at least most of them as small.

I'm honored to have been elected and reelected to the Board of Directors of the Tube Collectors Association.

Below are new photos of my tube collection.
These were taken on Tuesday February 28th, 2012.
I have just finished putting my display room that holds my antique radio collection and my tube collection back together after restoring the room after a fire.
I hope you enjoy your visit to Radio Heaven and my tube collection.
This is my wall mounted tube display case.
Below are close ups of these shelves.
These 5 Gold Air Line GX-201As are also part of my tube collection but they're not sitting in a glass display case, they live inside my glass cased battery set shown below.
I hope you enjoyed your visit to the Radio Heaven Tube Collection.
Please sign my Guest Book below.
Sign InView Entries
Has anyone else ever seen a set of these Sylvania signs?
833
4-1000
X-Ray tube
Photo multiplier from Kodak PVAC color film analyzer
Hydrogen Thyrotron
X-Ray Tube
Laser tube
Welch Peanut
with external gird
Western Electric
215A
UV-204 from WBT's
first xmitter, 1922
CV1098 from British"Chain Home"
Early Radar system
Metal based tubes, mostly
Brass Based, a few with other metal on far right
DeForest tubes, large one left is a type 500
tramsmitting tube
Box for 892-R tube, note 201A for size comparison
892-R that came in the
box shown above, NOS
600 watt light bulb for tower beacon shown below.
RCA UV-862, 100,000 watt
water cooled transmitting tube from WBT transmitter,
Note 892-R for size comparison.
One of my favorites, VT-158
Zahl Tube, from WW2 radar.
Most of the tuning assembly is "inside" the glass tube.
Unfinished CRT bottle made by Corning glass
1980s vintage Sony
Watchman TV with
unusual flat CRT.
TCAs "Tube Collector"
special issues on historical CRTs
3GP1 still sealed in original shipping crate.
H1421P48 Hughes Aircraft
Flying Spot Scanner
from Kodak color film
analyzer
3NP4 Philips Holland
used in earlyNORELCO projection
television
Left to Right
USN 1AP5/P11 Kip Electronics
USN CVG 6DP7 ETC, Six gun radar display
Left to Right
unmarked 2" CRT
JAN 3AP1 KenRad
JAN 3BP1 North American Philips NORELCO
5BP4 RCA
CK1383A Raytheon CRT
memory tube used in early radar.
Collection of Cathode Ray Tubes, CRTs.
RCA 7DP4
Used in early Television
studio monitors
RCA 905 circa 1934
Early 7" Television Picture Tube, circa 1948.
At the AWA annual meet in Rochester this past August I was fortunate enough to be awarded the AWA's Tyne Award for tube collecting.

Below is quoted from the AWA's award web page;

"Tyne Award: is presented, in remembrance of Gerald F. J. Tyne,
(author of the book: "Saga of Vacuum Tube"), for contributions
to preserving or documenting the history of valve technology."

Receiving a copy of Tyne's book "Saga of Vacuum Tube" at my first AWA meet in 1978 as a door prize is what sparked my interest in tube collecting.
I'm glad I got started back then before most of the good tubes go too expensive for me.