Eddystone S740

This Eddystone S740 which had been beautifully restored by its owner sold for a fantastic £176 on e Bay recently. The vendor gave a good and honest description of the set and included plenty of pictures which is just the right way to go about getting the best price.

The vendor said that when he got it, it was working reasonably well, though dusty and with some cabinet marks. Apparently electrically it was not far off, and just the usual capacitor and resistor replacements brought it up to spec. In fact he needed to replace far fewer capacitors than the later Eddystones he had repaired. Through the Eddystone User Group and courtesy of Ian Nutt who had reproductions made; he was able to replace the tuning spindle and bush so the tuning is really smooth. He gave the cabinet a clean up and a very light matt black spray to restore the original look but without hiding the wrinkle finish.

The performance was fine for what the vendor used it for – mainly local broadcast (using a 4 ft wire as antenna!). but he said it will resolve SSB with a bit of work getting the RF gain setting right so that the BFO can do its job. He also added a modern IEC mains connector with built in filter and a mains fuse.

The Eddystone S740 was a general coverage communications receiver; AC Mains 110-250v; 8 valves 1 RF; 1 IF (450kc/s); BFO;  required external speaker and had provision for plug-in S-meter; (both optional. It covered 4 bands: 1.4 to 30.6MHz According to Graeme’s QRG research the production run was only 900 sets, which made it rather rare and the original price was £32. 10s. 0d.

Absorption Wavemeter Model 696

This Absorption Wavemeter Model 696 sold for £62 recently on E bay. An earlier version of the famous Edometer and quite a find because it is considered to be quite rare. I think someone got a real bargain for such nice looking instrument. Housed in a standard die-cast metal box this handy device used eight miniature plug-in coils to give continuous coverage from 200 kc/s to 150 Mc/s. Originally two coil-stands were included to take coils not in use and individual hand-calibrated charts are supplied in a containing tube. The model sold shows only 6 coils and the seller stated it covered 1.25MHz to 150MHz. No mention was made of calibration charts so the purchaser would probably have to re-calibrate it. There was a later model 696/1 which was supplied with nine coils and covered the frequency range 200 kc/s to 200 Mc/s. Original price in 1954: £13 10s 6d equivalent to £335 now.

All World Two

This All World Two radio sold for £1020 recently on E-bay. It was hard fought after with some 32 bids recorded. I don’t know if this is a record price for this radio but it must be very near the top. From memory I think the previous high price was in the region of £500. The All World Two was first produced in 1936 and was offered either as a kit at £3.7s.6d plus valves and wooden case or ready built and tested for £5.5s. By the outbreak of war its ready built price had fallen to £3.17s.6d. You could even buy it on hire purchase terms complete with ‘phones and batteries for £1 down and six monthly payments of 16s 4d. One of the receiver’s claim to fame was that it was used by Voluntary Interceptors (V.I.s) during the early war period, before H.R.O.s were bought from U.S.A. V.I.s were civilian hams and S.W.L.s who monitored enemy Morse signals from their home QTH for Bletchley Park to decode.