Re: ID-ing some Genelex Gold MonarchKT88 - Help appreciated - ARC

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Re: ID-ing some Genelex Gold MonarchKT88 - Help appreciated

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In Reply to: ID-ing some Genelex Gold MonarchKT88 - Help appreciated posted by Byrd69 on June 4, 2006 at 05:37:29:

I don't have any of these myself anymore(sold them long ago to move to more interesting and better value/performance ratio DIY type tubes), but pix ABOUND on the web with a google search to compare yours to; that said, I can say w/ 100% confidence that they are The "real thing"--- The Gold Monarch name has NEVER been licensed or used on ANY tubes but real, vintage, M-O Valve/GEC/Marconi-Osram made in UK tubes. Period. Determining the vintage is easy; you will see somewhere on the tube a set of 2 or 3 letters; earlier manufactured GEC KT88s placed a simple two letter date code somewhere on the glass, later ones placed a 3 letter code in a white square; within this square will be "KT88" on top, and, for example, "RM Z" below that. The first letter of the datecode is the year. In our "RM Z" datecode example, R is 1960. In 1943, Marconi-Osram/GEC started with the letter "A". R is the 18th letter of the alphabet, hence the 18th year (and R ISN'T 1961; 1943 is inclusive as year "A")So, look for the FIRST letter of the datecode and just start counting from 1943. The second letter is (I think)the WEEK of production. I really only pay attention to year codes because the week/month issue is irrelevant. But I am dead-on accurate about the 1943 starting year, etc. In tubes with three letter datecodes, the final letter stands for what factory at which the tubes were made. Z is GEC/Hammersmith, U.K. In the 1970s, after they ran out of letters, (Z being 1969)they went with digit codes that are plainly stated, e.g 7917 (made in 1979)

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Follow Ups Full Thread

Topic - ID-ing some Genelex Gold MonarchKT88 - Help appreciated - Byrd69 05:37:29 06/04/06 (2)

Re: ID-ing some Genelex Gold MonarchKT88 - Help appreciated - ARC 07:40:57 06/04/06 (1)

Value-- Can't say, but strangely low these days compared to TungSol blackplate 6550s - ARC 08:06:49 06/04/06 (0)

Follow Ups

Re: ID-ing some Genelex Gold MonarchKT88 - Help appreciated - ARC 07:40:57 06/04/06 (1)

Value-- Can't say, but strangely low these days compared to TungSol blackplate 6550s - ARC 08:06:49 06/04/06 (0)

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