Since 1993 Copyright Notice
HALL OF SHAME, PICTURES OF FAKE TUBES
I've had this warning page up since the year 2000, and I still get feedback from people saying how shocked they are to see all of this for the first time. Honestly, I'm no longer surprised by how naive some buyers on eBay can be.
Folks, please remember: No, you cannot buy genuine Telefunken ECC803S tubes made by Telefunken on eBay for half the normal price. The same goes for Telefunken 6211 tubes, which are often misleadingly re-branded by sellers as ECC802S.
The 6211 is a completely different tube. It was designed as a switching tube, not for audio use, and its characteristics reflect that: poor linearity, problematic tube curves, and overall performance that simply doesn’t match what you’d expect from an ECC802S. Yes, about half of them will bias in an ECC82 circuit -- I’m aware of that -- but that doesn't change the fact that the grid spacing is double, and for that reason the resulting curves and tube data are unsuitable for audio applications.
Some sellers even print both designations on a single tube, as if they were interchangeable, which is misleading and, frankly, troubling. I try not to dwell too much on the misinformation found on eBay, but sometimes it's important to point it out.
In the end, maybe it’s human nature to believe in something even when we suspect it isn’t true. The plain truth can be disappointing, and many of the greatest stories in books and movies never happened -- yet we love them anyway.
BEFORE YOU READ THE REST: Just to clarify, this is my personal opinion, and it’s not meant to discredit honest sellers who might unintentionally carry fakes in their inventory. In fact, when I see a seller openly acknowledging that they've made a mistake and are correcting it, I think that’s a good approach. Admitting that mistakes happen and taking steps to make things right, including warning others, is something I really respect.
For example, there’s a tube seller in the USA who took it a step further — they removed the fake markings from the tubes and sold them as unbranded NOS (New Old Stock). I think that’s another reasonable solution. (If you're familiar with him, his alias starts with 'tubem...')
WHERE YOU CAN BUY FAKES: I know of the faking companies, but of course, I can't mention their names here. There are two very large ones in the UK that sell through eBay under their regular company names. There's another one in Switzerland — let's just call it 'Macro-ethics.' I also know a company in Germany with a huge web shop that proudly sells Telefunken tubes with fake laser-etched diamonds.
There's even an older, well-known German company that once sold me 10 counterfeit Telefunken ECC802S tubes. When I spoke with them, they assured me they had no idea the tubes were fake, and honestly, I believe them. But mistakes like this can still happen, and it's important to recognize that."
LASER FAKED DIAMOND
Link to LASER FAKING PARTProducts that are faked:
Tube faking and wine faking have a long tradition. Not just tubes are faked, but also money, watches, and just any precious item. Even gold bars are faked with the exact specific weight.
There’s actually a fascinating video on YouTube of Koko, the gorilla who was taught American Sign Language by her owner. In one scene, Koko is shown an aggressive looking toy dinosaur out of the blue. She immediately jumps back in surprise, but then she quickly starts signing: first, 'Teeth,' and then 'False.' It’s pretty impressive how even a gorilla can tell when something isn’t real! You can find this video on YouTube -- it’s a great example of how even animals have a sense for fakes.
There are some highly professional companies out there, faking tubes in ways that will truly shock you if you knew the full extent of it. The lengths some people will go to for money, with absolutely no regard for ethics or even the well-being of others, is incredible. I could share real-life examples of some of these shady tube practices, but it’s better if you do your own research -- just Google it, and you’ll find that it’s all true.
With that in mind, don't be fooled when you see 'miracle' items up for sale on auction websites. Always approach things with healthy skepticism and do your homework.
Example1.Did you know that even airplane parts are sometimes faked and sold as ‘old stock’ or ‘new production’. Now, of course, it’s perfectly fine for companies to refurbish airplane interiors—like old kitchens or passenger seats. But re‑using engines or critical components that have already exceeded their certified operating hours is strictly forbidden. Once an engine reaches the end of its service life, it must be replaced, even if it still seems to work fine.
It’s allowed to repair engines that have low operating hours, but the total time in use must stay accurate. Every part and every engine has a certificate recording its hours and serial numbers. Unfortunately, some counterfeiters have found ways to fake all of this.
This kind of fraud poses a serious problem for the aviation industry. And yes, there are aircrafts flying today with such parts installed. If one of them crashes, investigators often find it nearly impossible to uncover the truth, because everything—the parts, the documents, even the serial numbers—can be faked so perfectly.
Example2 The dioxin scandal in Belgium occurred in 1999. It was discovered that used engine oil had been mixed into animal feed for chickens and pigs to make the meat appear juicier. This practice led to the contamination of eggs and meat with dioxins, which are highly toxic chemicals. The scandal had widespread consequences, causing public outrage and triggering a European-wide crisis in food safety.
As a result, it led to stricter regulations and controls in the food industry across many countries. The scandal really damaged public trust in the food supply
Example3. This is one of the most disturbing cases of fraud I’ve ever heard of. In 2014, several managers of a milk factory in China were sentenced to death for producing fake baby milk powder. Instead of real ingredients, they made the formula out of nothing but oil, sugar, and chemicals. They added colorants and chemical smells, and no one could see or taste the difference. Even though baby formula is routinely tested by food authorities worldwide, including in China, these criminals had a trick up their sleeve. They added melamine, a chemical used to make hard plastics, like spoons and trays. This chemical fooled the protein tests. This chemical is toxic, but in plastic, it's not dangerous. However, when mixed with the fake milk, it became a slow poison for babies' kidneys.
The plan was incredibly twisted: the fake milk contained no protein, but the melamine made the protein tests look normal. Babies fed this milk, often as a supplement to other foods, would suffer from a protein deficiency. Since babies want to consume a certain amount of proteine per day, they kept on drinking more and more of the fake milk. Their bodies were desperately trying to make up for the missing protein. Parents thought the babies really liked the milk, and were happy about the babies eating so much of it.
You need to know, In China fat babies are a sign of health and prosperity, soe business was booming. The problem was, the milk was zero-protein, which slowly killed the babies, especially those who were exclusively fed the fake formula without any natural breast milk. Their kidneys began to fail due to the melamine. This makes the situation even weirder. The kidney failure made them more thirsty, leading to even more milk consumption! So crazy! . It was a vicious circle.
The tragic result? Hundreds of thousands of babies across China developed severe kidney problems. Some of them died. The scale of the damage was enormous: at least 300,000 babies were affected. By the time the authorities discovered what was happening, too many lives had been destroyed. Babies that survived were left with lifelong health problems.
If this is the first time you’re hearing about this, you might not believe it. But it’s all true. It’s a chilling reminder that belief is a very unreliable substitute for knowledge. Read the full story on Wikipedia here.
Example4 Fake doctors sometimes managed to practice for decades without anyone ever suspecting a thing. Patients are often completely shocked when the truth comes out, because they seemed just like any other doctor (they talk with you for 90 seconds, and then send you home with a prescription) .
We tend to believe so strongly in the authority of someone wearing a white coat, as if they were appointed by God. The trust and respect we associate with that image can almost blind us.
It’s not so different in the world of tubes, either. The 'tube doctors' — the sellers who know exactly what appearance you’re looking for — understand how to make their products look convincing. If you think you can always spot a fake from an online offer, then you’re truly gifted. Unfortunately, I don’t have that ability myself — and that’s a real pity.
So for me, what counts is only facts. Go for proof only. Ask for a high resolution close up picture of the diamond, so you can be sure it is not lasered. Translate the etched small printing code, etc. So when you have no proof for the tubes being faked, that is one thing, but then try to find positive proof, they are real. If you cannot find that either, you have nothing but 'belief' and THAT is very little when we are talking about E88CC, of which to my opinion are fakes around as real ones.
I would say, really anything is faked, as long as it makes money. Even smallest amounts attract fakers. So how about big money? How about selling faked factory boxes with 100 tubes inside, that go for 150$ per tube or more. So make 10000$ on one box, and sell a few of those boxes to some dealers, and then disappear? Believe me, this is big business.
Historical fakes. A fake job can be 70 years old, and this can be very confusing. Did you know, the very first Western Electric tubes, with numbers like VT2, had solid gold tips, attached to the tube pins? In history, there was a period when such tubes were well available, and it was simply nice business to replace the solid gold tips by gold plated brass. In 1930, when somebody did that on a box with 100 pcs, even when it took him the whole day, the result was 400 little gold pieces.
With regular tubes, so the 6.3 Volt Series with Octal and Noval base, you can sometimes buy on Ebay tubes that are obviously very old. This seems clear, from the rusty pins, and dirty dusty boxes beginning to fall apart already. Yet they test like new. I bet that makes you feel good. Still this can be a fake job that was done 50 years ago. These may have had several owners (for instance five owners, in 40 years) Then you see them for sale in the internet, and you think you spot the once in your life opportunity, waiting for YOU there, to win the lucky deal. Be aware some fakes jobs were done so well, and so often, that these are massively around still, even when very old.
How fakes are sold. With the internet, the fakers are provided a sales platform, of the kind they never had before. In the old days, they had no other option as to sell their fakes to tube dealers or to work for them even. Whereas today, Ebay has become the standard sales platform for them. Even a few old and large companies, I see them selling fakes in their Ebay shops. The classical platform, selling them to tube dealers, the fakers are using additional. So you may see large dealers selling fakes, as if it these are normal tubes, and at the same time find those same tubes with Ebay private sellers.
Although tube dealers are not stupid, and pay no good prices for fakes. So Ebay has become very popular. What also causes this, is the Ebay feedback system. Feedback is given mainly for for nice optics and quick shipment, and not for quality. Just when it all looks to good to be true, that seems to be what buyers are specifically looking for. So positive feedback is given quickly. Then, afterwards, they can't change the feedback anymore. Unlike Amazon, where you can change your feedback any time. So nobody sells his fakes on Amazon.
The people that buy it. So let's not be naive, and think tubes are faked on a small scale and rare occasions only, and only fools buy it. Market mechanisms don't work that way. Sorry for the 'wake up' message, and this way to write, but I want to give more attention to this. With tubes, it's done on a huge scale ever since, but today with prices soaring, and markets screaming for NOS <> Telefunken, methods are refining more and more.
I do not want to be too specific, but a well known USA tube dealer, with a very nice, well known internet shop and Ebay shop, found Telefunken E88CC in 100pcs factory packs, from a seller in East Europe. He went over there by airplane, to buy all he could get. And that seller had MANY. I don't know what he paid, but just to have a number, if he paid 80$, a 100pcs box cost him 8000$. I don't know how many boxes they sold him, but it was (according to the buyer) a huge purchase. This man is now totally mad about my fakes tubes pages, and actually that is why I know about this, because he told me so himself.
Case1) Grande business. In 2003, I visited a company in Switzerland, who has access to real (NOS) tube printing tools (for the glass) and tons of NOS boxes. I was there initially to check their NOS offerings, but we could not agree on anything. They had this attitude, like they are the greatest, and you have to buy it from them anyway. When I got there, they wanted prices same as on Ebay, and when I offered a price.... Read the full story here.
Case2) The Ebay Company. Here is another case: There is a German company, who offered directly on Ebay to professionally re-work and gold plate tube pins of ECC tubes, so they would look like new again. I do not say this is good or bad, but I want to point out here, this is possible.
Case3) The friendly retired TFK employee. I once met a person who introduced himself as a retired Telefunken Employee, it was on an electronics flea market in Germany, in Friedrichshafen. Selling small quantities of NOS tubes there, and really good prices. The typical friendly older person, you find many of them there. Just the normal situation, I paid not much attention to it, but yes I bought some of his tubes. Then after testing the tubes, I was really surprised... Read the full story here.
Case4) Some stupid cases. Sometimes, fakes are done a bit stupid. Like fakers buy used TFK ECC83 on Ebay (with the diamond <> mark in the bottom) and then re stamp them as Telefunken ECC803S, with a new printed box. Make the box a bit old and dusty, and there you are, your good old ECC803S from somebodies uncle who just died. Without guarantee, and no returns of course, because that's normal on Ebay, that doesn't ring a bell. Well it pays off, since mint condition Telefunken ECC803 costs up to 1000 Euro each (as I write this in 2012). Some people always buy it, and think they have the deal of their life for only 500€ for a matched pair. It's just those fakes I add here when I can get hold of a picture. Just for the fun of it, and for just showing how some simple details tell the truth. Yet, do not underestimate this. Some fake jobs are done very nice, and we even got used to the fakes, and people begin to think they're real. Like the Svetlana EF86, that you can now see in all kind of brands, with perfect stamps, and like new boxes.
Case5) The unknown seller. An interesting situation is when there was this really huge batch of TESLA ECC803S offered also to me in 2006, via internet, from dealer from which I buy occasionally some NOS stocks. This time, he had for sale this huge batch of ECC803S. This turned out to be a huge fake job, big money. I was not the only victim. So far, this tube I have never seen faked, because originals were still available. They would sell for about 40 Euro in those days. The crowd was not interested in those, it was a tube for connaisseurs rather. There was not yet this typical lemming effect for this part number. Also the TESLA brand was not discovered yet as the second best tube after Telefunken. Still I noticed increased demand already. So a lemming effect might develop, and simply buy a few hundred of those in 2006, as they were still no expensive, seemed a good idea to me. Later, as I found out about the fake job, I issued a warning on the largest non-moderated, old women gossip and mud throwing Forum, called.... Read the full story here.
Not only JJ tubes are used to fake expensive tubes, though the JJ are quite popular for this purpose, because they're so cheap, and there is a lot of second choice around, which they do not destroy. Still any other low cost tube can be used for it also. It has been common practice amongst fakers, since decades, to put EI tubes into reprinted Philips boxes. This is obvious, because these tubes are made on Philips tools, and JJ on old Telefunken look-alike tools.
Another source is the rejects of the last few tube factories, struggling to survive, and that don't pay their employees well. Think what it means for a person with a low salary, when his boss tells him to dispose those 5000 pieces audio tubes, that have quality issues. What would he do? This amount fits in the trunk of his car. So he says: Yes boss, I put them in my car, and drive it to the junk yard for you. Then sell it for 3$ / each to a faker. It means 15.000$ tax free money for those people in the factory chain. It means $35.000 profit for the faker when he sells them for $10 each on the large auction site where all gold diggers are looking for nuggets. Then, imagine that is done in countries where $35000 is a five year's salary. So do you really think this man throws those tubes away?
Case6) Old 'EI' stocks. After closure and dismantling the EI Factory, the old tube inventory was sold to tube dealers. The big boys picked out the best selling part numbers, and the small boys were buying the low cost stuff. One good example is ECF802, but also more expensive tubes like ECC88 of E88CC is re-branded like whatever gets higher market prices. Such as Siemens ECC88, or CCa. So if some tubes existed from both brands, and look the same, and many sellers have many, and boxes are all so new, and printing is so clean.... What shall I say...?
Case 7) Private faking. This is getting popular now. Since NOS prices go up anyway, people buy NOS tubes, in possibly nice looking boxes. Then they use them in their private equipment. After first sign on use begin to appear, they put them back into the old boxes, and sell them on Ebay again, as NOS, and likely make a profit even. Or, some have for instance used Telefunken in their amplifier, run for thousands of hours but still good. Then buy a pair of NOS with boxes, swap the tubes, and when they are lucky pay almost nothing for changing old tubes into new.
Case 8) The man with a huge box full of NOS Telefunken ECC803S. Such persons pop up occasionally, always with a exited story of a great find. I have seen that kind of stories not for the first time. Instead of keeping those pearls, they are desperate to sell it. That's already a red flag to me. It gets even more curious when they offer to meet you and do cash business, like I saw in a video on youtube.
You see, the situation today is, you can still buy a good looking ECC803S copy from JJ. Their ECC803S is made the same way. Just it's JJ tube of course. But if you ask for a data sheet, it lacks all technical details of Telefunken ECC803S. Their data sheet is just like ECC83. They should be ashamed of such a data sheet. This brand, is to my opinion the lowest quality tube available from new production. I had factory new tubes from them, loosing plate current already on the tube tester, while looking at it. That is MAJOR difference with Telefunken, because when they are really NOS, these test exactly by the data sheet. Spot on, out of a 60 years old box, without burn in. They are so painfully accurate, you can calibrate your tube tester with them. Once you have seen this, you will deeply respect this quality. So how to make fake Telefunken ECC803S from JJ tubes? Well, you need to laser the diamond in the bottom, that is easy to do. A cheap method is by laser in negative, but that can be unveiled under a microscope. With some more effort you can laser it also in positive, and even melt the glass at the surface. That gives some cracked tubes, but most will survive it. NOS boxes are still around, I just sold the last 200pcs I had to a German Ebay dealer. A nice person, but it should be clear to you, what he is doing with those boxes. The lettering on those boxes can be made with standard stamps. So what remains is the logo printing. Now here, it gets difficult for the fakers :) The original printing is a so called screen printing. That is this chalky kind of printing, which wipes off so easily. There are also still today a few machines around, as used by Telefunken, with original logos, which were from the lab in Ulm, used for prototyping. I don't know how many of the machines are still alive, but I was even offered one for sale myself for a crazy price (from a company in Switzerland), and I have seen another one in operation with a person in Neu Ulm, who re printed tubes by the 100's in the basement of his house. He did now want to say who he sold it to, but he did say it was in South Germany. His customers were the big tube dealers. These machines however use not screen printing, but a different method. These have a metal print on which the ink is applied by a rubber roll. Ink is not the word, it is a very thick white paint. Then it prints the logo initially on a rubber plate. Over this plate then, the tube is rolled. It is all done in one move, with a handle. The print result is high quality, but it looks still as if it was stamped with a rubber stamp on the glass.
Of course the seller who has a huge quantity of ECC803S has his own story, why this not fake. He tries to get the benefit of the doubt. But all you have to do, check on Ebay for used ECC803S, you don't need to look very hard to see these are always screen printed. Screen print doesn't have the appearance of stamped with paint. It looks more like printed.
So how to detect real NOS? If you are unexperienced, this is hard to do. I try to give you some hints here.
- A good technician will trust the electrical data coming from a parametric tube tester, such as the Russian L3-3, but you have zero chances with a Hickock or any other 'quick' tester.
- Balancing. Double triodes that are balanced by the factory data sheet, such as ECC801S 802S and 803S, should of course not have 30% difference. If yes, they are fake, or used. Though really we need to warn for everything at the moment. I have first hand information from a tube dealer, who was asked to test PCC88, and only ship those that are testing nicely balanced at 6.3 Volts, with an L3-3 tester. You can guess what that was for. Read the full story here.
- Only buy from dealers that expose themself since many years. So not from an unknown man on an unknown website. Check if he publishes his full address and telephone number.
- At auction web sites, buy only from sellers that show their name and address BEFORE BUYING. It should be obvious a faker will NEVER show his identity online.
So now enjoy the pictures coming below here! But before you do....
Please don't:
- Write emails about Ebay auctions that you want to bid on. I used to kindly answer such emails, but in the end I wondered always why I answer such questions, and get nothing back for it.
Please do:
- Post Ebay questions in the tube forums in the internet. That is the right place for it. For instance 'Audio asylum' is a great for discussions about opinions. Lies, and are fake news, it is of allowed there, they call it there freedom of speech. The only thing which is not tolerated there, is negative opinions about those who pay the advertising.
- Send pictures of fakes tubes when you have some, so we can make this overview more interesting.
For Ebay (1), I have this recommendation for you: The major part of the normal market price, should be achieved 24 hours before the auction ends. If not, that is because people with knowledge are not bidding. If somebody is definitely prepared to pay 1500 Euro for a pair of tubes on Ebay, he will not make a 100 Euro bid only, and then wait three minutes to the end of the auction. So if a 1500 Euro pair of tubes and a 7 days auction is still at 100 Euro with only one 4 hours to go, that not a good sign. So if you understand how this observation works, and if you see knowledgeable people not bidding, it must have a reason. You better stay away too.
For Ebay (2), Even the contrary is nice to see. We stay with the above example. Suppose you bid indeed 1500 Euro on this pair, while it is at 100 Euro only. Right after you s
et the bid, you become the highest bidder with 1450 Euro. That is good! In means somebody else had a bid of 1400 Euro on it. From the same perspective you can ALSO feel bad about it, when you give a 1500 Euro bid, while the price is 100 Euro, and you are still the highest bidder for 350 Euro, 4 days later. It seems you are the only person on earth, prepared to go up to 1500 Euro. Consider to cancel the bid.
WARNING. Telefunken <> Diamond is faked |
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Another case was brought to my attention in 2015 about faking the diamond by laser, and I was able to follow up on this case with more proof. The person used such tubes for this, which have identical appearance with Telefunken, like EI tubes from Yugoslavia. Actually this was old stock from the clearance of the EI factory. |
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FAKED Date Codes for Telefunken tubes. Seen by myself so far. This list of of course very incomplete.
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Fake, lasered diamond. Pictured under normal light. You see just a nice DIAMOND. It is FAKE. Read the rest here, about how I made the fake visible. |
So here we are, we write 2016, and now I have a FAKED TELEFUNKEN DIAMOND TUBE on my desk. A normal, nice looking, new appearance <> tube. If you see such a picture briefly and unsharp in Ebay you think, oh great, with diamond. So it can be no fake. However, this is a faked, lasered diamond. This is done beautifully, with great perfection, and yet with some details that disguise the fake. I will explain that later. Where do these tubes come from? They are from the factory closure of EI in Niss. Huge piles of 6GH8A was found in the basement, that nobody wanted to have. Some found their way to a faker, who is said to be practicing only, and more expensive tube types will follow. I really could not believe this story, and I did not want to publish something here without physical proof, so at least one, clearly faked diamond I needed. Well.... I have one now, so here it is. At fist sight, you absolutely don't see the difference. I mean, sometimes the real <> can be a bit vague, so when you see a clear, nicely visible diamond, you don't get suspicious. Even though I was told it was a fake, I couldn't recognize that with the bare eye. |
Funny paint is used
Here you see, the printing is done with some kind of fat white paint, same as JJ is using in red color. Click on the picture for an enlargement. One of my tube suppliers was offered both variants, before faking and after faking. He bought for me two boxes of 100pcs, of the unfaked tubes. He was given a sample of the faked tubes, which he gave to me. So pictures here are from that (one) faked tube, I still have it. These can be found on Ebay, by sellers who tell you usual stories. But more important to know is, the faker told us, this action was only to practice on cheaper kind of tubes. Later, this will be done better, and with expensive tubes. Well and I have to say, even the tests which I pictured here had laser diamonds which look not bad, and that was in 2015. So you bet they improved the process. |
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 Before faking |
 After faking |
I quickly made this sketch as it tells more than words. Also in the next picture, I show you the glass cracks. They did a really nice job, actually melting the surface, and also achieving the original dimensions. The surface does not look lasered at all, and it has indeed identical surface like original diamonds too. Only thing is.... the real diamond is in positive. HOWEVER, laser can only remove something, or melt it, but not add material. So really, the fake diamond is extremely well done, BUT.... there are three things I noted:
Really search for proof, a real diamond is in positive, and this is very very confusing! Negative, faked diamonds appear positive under some angle, and this is very very hard to see. More reliable than the eye, is a fine, sharp cutter knife. With that you can easily feel if the diamond is INSIDE the glass, meaning it is fake, or ON the glass, so it is real. WARNING I can't just write company names here, but I have seen them already with some of the larger UK and German tube dealers. |
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I heard about this first time in 2012, when I used to believe the TFK <> diamond was impossible to fake. 
Using similar tubes
the difficultie for fakers is, what tubes to take for the fake. They can take PCC88 and fake it as E88CC. Most people have no way to find out the difference. Best was is to check the heater current vs. the heater voltage, and you will see the difference. PCC88 is a 7V tube, E88CC is 6.3V. It's only 10% off the heater voltage, that works is many cases satisfactory. So from 200 buyers, 199 will not check it, and the tube works fine for a while. Though lifetime is probably only half. There are wagonloads of P-Series tubes for sale. But not PCC88. They'r even expensive if you find them at all. Though you can only use them to repair a tube TV, which something almost nobody is doing.
Here is a case, somebody fooled me with ECC802S, but as he said it was not intended. Well, I believe him.
The Small printing as ultimate proof for real tubes?
I am not an expert on small printing, but if you can decipher it, you get always the genuine part number, and the manufacturer. Now that is difficult to fake. Like selling normal ECC83 as the low noise version 7025, that is not going to work, if you read the small printing. Small printing is difficult to remove, and adding such metallic codes is an extra step with more difficulties. So this will becomes increasingly important. Though I expect also this hurdle can be overcome by the faking mafia.
What do the boxes tell?
A lot! But you need to use your eyes! Fake tube boxes often are low quality fake job, when it's a small quantity only. However, when somebody is professionally faking tubes in quantities of 100's per part number, for an expensive tube, just make the calculation... If the fakes tube brings 150 Euro, and the cheap tube cost only 10 Euro, we have a project with 14000 Euro profit on a box of 100pcs. These get sold to the 'so respectable' tube dealers, which have one eye closed. Why fake only one box? Better do 20 boxes, and offer simulatiously one box to 20 dealers. This is big business for the fake mafia.
So tube boxes, which you can simply not recognise as re-prints, on order to pack 1000 tubes, really perfect copies, it is a piece of cake.
For small quantities, laser printed boxes are more likely what you will see. Compare with very old boxes you have. You will see old boxes are printed with ink, and laser printed boxes are printed with powder.
Producing 'old' looking tube boxes, is hard. A good advise I have for you, is the smell and the feel of the boxes. Old paper detoriates over time. There is a small acid content in old paper, and the paper damages itself after decades. So after 100 years, it will make old boxes literally fall apart, some pieces will just break off by touching it. This is a long and slow process, which accelerates in the end. Already after 40 years, the paper gets soft, and begins to develops this characteristic detoriation smell, which you can easily detect when you remove the tube, and.... Read the full story here.
Faked boxes with Banderols simply from Ebay. The brand rights for Telefunken have not expired. So this faker should be more careful.
Note this: The flaps of older boxes, when opened and closed many times, they tend to brake off. It's not nice to see, but a good sign. With new paper that is not happening. You can also check how the boxes were glued. So take it apart, and look at the glue. Can you see if they are hand glued, or machine glued? So check the glue stripe. Is it uniform, and hand applied? You can easily see the difference. You can put it back together again, and compare with old boxes of your collection.
Acid Damaged Paper
When stored inside a 100pcs master carton, of course the boxes stay in better condition, but the acid in the air will do it's work. The paper becomes less strong as well. Also the difference between recently folded boxes and boxes that were in use since 40 years, is hard to fake. So take the tube out, and open the flaps. Then see if the boxes have a preference to change their shape, so the box will try to go back a little bit, like to the condition when it was 'flat', so before folding it. . They sure will not do this after 40 years. Also the flap INSIDE the box, will not hold the tube firmly in place with old boxes. Tubes rattle inside even, whereas in new boxes that will not be so.
Telefunken Series numbers
This is a pain in the a... for the fakers, to print every tubes with an individual series number. So when you can buy Telefunken tubes without series numbers on it, be careful. With most real old Telefunken tubes I had, there was almost always this long series number on the tube side. And though it is possible of course, normally the numbers are not the same. Most of the time, the same number is printed on the box. Each time, I see people offer E88CC, and the sellers have them in boxes of 100 pcs, which they so proudly show, how come there is never a date code stamped on the box? The ones I had, always had this long series number. Note E88CC is a very rare tube, it is not normal everybody has them in full 100 pcs boxes. I must say, I don't trust this situation since a long time, and U was offered such myself in full boxes of 100pcs, but I send them back, because printing was funny, and they all tested a bit strange. Some weak, and some not, and most with big differences between two triodes in one bulb. All if that is not normal for TRUE Telefunken E88CC. I have to say, this was before I learned about laser faked diamonds. I do know the seller made BIG business with those tubes. Not from the seller himself, but from one of his OEM customers. There was this tube dealer from the USA, going by air plane to East Europe, to buy directly EVERYTHING he could get his hands on, and (what a coincidence) it were very very many. He spend almost a six digit number of US$ with that seller. For my little self, I received 100 pcs to try, and I send them back, at that time not trusting that strange yellow-white printing, the crazy spread in tube data, and the boxes looked like printed yesterday. After my complaint the seller offered my two weeks later, boxes if 100 tubes, but now with improved printing, in original Telefunken white. That confirmed what I was already thinking. Interesting, that USA buyer found my website, and he contacted me several times, with very long emails, he was mad like hell, because he said I was trying to damage his business on purpose. But look, all I do, is share my experience. As said, it is a pity, I did not know at that time, laser faked diamonds E88CC were around, so I did not check this lot for it. Read more about laser faking the diamond here but I can tell you, these faked diamonds are VERY difficult to disguise, but you can do it. At a first look, they look totally real. But not until I found out they were printed in reverse. They were IN the glass, instead of laying ON the glass. So this makes this subject extremely difficult, and in short, it is possible to fake E88CC TFK <> to an unbelievable degree of perfection. I am pretty sure even, that were just primitive attempts, compared to what fakers with 'golden hands' will ne able to do. I am convinced they read this, and find ways to laser the diamond to an even higher degree of perfection. Some day in the future, you will only be able to see this under a microscope. For now, a watch maker's lens will do.
ECC803S. Historical Fakes of ECC803S
I know directly from a retired Telefunken Employee, that only VERY FEW ECC803S were ever made, and mainly they were used in measurement equipment by Wandel & Golterman, Germany. ECC803S is a long life tube. Fine with me, but I remember from the days of tube Television, that plain old ECC83 was not really long life at all. Well whatever the reason, today supply of NOS ECC83 is very very low, and prices go up 10..20% each year. What was considered 'expensive' like 10$ for Philips NOS, 10 years ago, is now a joke. What is the price now in 2012 (as I write this)? Perhaps 60...100$. Wait for 2020.
There is one particular appearance of fake ECC803S that pops up again and again. Here is an interesting detail of a batch I found. These had date code 72508. Inside were Sylvania 12AX7, but the original ' 12AX7WA Made in USA' was on the glass still. This was like the 'small printing' as on most Philips and Siemens tubes, perhaps you know this kind of letter type. Only here, it was on the top of the tube, AND..... it sort of wiped off by itself, just by cleaning the glass with a cloth. Now this is extremely unlogical for a fake job with bad intentions, to leave that on. What we see here, appears to be in line with general behavior of tube factories, just fill in momentary need with other brands. Going further with assumptions... Was this done at Telefunken itself? I think not. Reason is, if done at Telefunken itself, they would have used the normal small boxes. However, the date code 72508 was in the larger boxes of EL84.
BOXES: The box dimensions were standardized. There were long boxes for EL84 and similar, and short boxes for ECC83 and similar. Interesting, so far the fake ECC803S were offered in long boxes.
Of course I cannot guarantee someone picks a good date code from a real ECC803S, but these codes I have seen on fakes. Official Telefunken date codes start with letter 'U'
DATECODES: 72056, 72058. I think, done in Switzerland by the company Macro(no)ethics.
104x, 32058, 30140, 91140. Seen so far.
PART II SPECIFIC TUBES
The first high vacuum tube ever made - faked
Thermionic emission was discovered by Thomas Alva Edison by coincidence. He did not know what to do with it, and filed no patent, which was the mistake of the century. For another purpose, he had an unconnected wire through the glass of a light bulb, and an Ampere meter connected to it by coincidence. Unexpected, he noted the meter moving when he switched on the light bulb on. Very little, but he saw it clearly. He had no explanation and no application for it. Not knowing, he had the first directly heated diode on his bench. You have to understand, he saw no application for this, as the only possible application would be to amplify very weak on-off signals for telegraphy. His discovery It was later taken to the Western Electric labs, by an ex employee of Edison, and WE also found no application for it. The remarkable observation was put to sleep for many years.
Now, why I write this.... The de Forest tube originally had feed-though of the wires through the glass, of platinum wire, because they didn't know any better. Later, so called 'Dumet' wire was invented. A Dumet lead wire is a copper wire to the outside world, then a borated wire which is sealed into the glass, and then a nickel wire which goes inside the tube. So three pieces are welded together. The borated part melts itself inside the glass perfectly. Dumet is used with almost every tube and light bulb still today, and you can recognize it by it's red color where it seals with the glass, and a trained eye can observe the weld spot too. Look at this picture from Wikipedia of a so called '1906 de Forest tube'. It has Dumet wire :) That didn't exist yet in 1906. |
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TESLA ORIGINAL vs TESLA TUBES BY JJATTENTION: I DO NOT WANT TO SAY ANYTHING NEGATIVE HERE ABOUT JJ, OR ABOUT THEIR EARLY DAYS, WHERE THEY USED THE TESLA BRAND FOR THEIR OWN TUBES.Though collectors value of those does not come near to genuine TESLA, yet such tubes do have a collector's value, higher than new JJ production. These are quite old now, we can call them NOS, made for some part with original Tesla materials in those days. IT IS JUST THIS SITUATION IS NOT WELL KNOWN. That is the reason why I write it here.
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5U4G FAKE RCA
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6V6 Original by Reflektor. Om this picture here are the original Russian tubes. The Russian use a different designation, but it's a real 6V6. These are the real ones.
In the next lines, look what great ideas the fakers have, but even more amazing is, how people buy their stuff on Ebay, thinking they find gold nuggets just waiting there, for a little price. What is so crazy, the REFLEKTOR ORIGINALS are regarded cheap dirt by the buyers, whereas to my opinion this is best 6V6 there is. a fantastic tube. Yet, when some nut prints totally unrealistic brands on the glass, the sell for 4x the price. So what do the sellers do...? You know it. And what do the buyers do...? You know it :) 6V6 Reflektor, Russia. Re branded as CEI 'made in Italy'.
Yet, when some nut prints totally unrealistic brands on the glass, the sell for 4x the price. So what do the sellers do...? You know it. And what do the buyers do...? You know it :) Of course CEI never made Reflektor tubes in Italy.
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6V6 Reflektor, branded REALISTIC. FAKE country of origin.
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6V6 Fake Philips.
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6X5 Reflektor, branded CEI. FAKE country of origin.
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6X5 Fake Brimar.
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300B Fake Western Electric
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6080 Fake Telefunken. Placed here in 2015.6080 TELEFUNKEN NOS PICTURES.... I don't want to be the bad guy, but just look on Ebay, and they throw them around everywhere by the dozens. All with the same date code. Here is some background about this, because.... I WAS OFFERED THIS TUBE LOT FOR SALE BEFORE THE FAKING!!! The faker didn't care much to make different data codes. So 17.000 tubes they are all made the same day. Production time per tube: 0.6 seconds. What a joke! From a French person there was a 17.000 pcs lot Thomson France 6080WA for sale in 2013. Also from a Slovenian dealer, well known to the people that buy and sell tubes in large quantities, a huge stock of 'Thomson' branded 6080 tubes was for sale until recently. I was offered this lot for 3.50 Euro per tube, several times by email from 2013 to 2015. But who is going to pay 59.500 Euro for a truck load of tubes of low interest? Not me. I would not even take them for 1 Euro. Not because it's too expensive per tube. But because it's 17.000 Euro, and any other buyer will think the same. He was desperate to get rid of them, as he was going out of tubes business, focussing on his construction company instead. 6080 is one of the cheapest tubes that exist anyway. I was told by one of his other customers, he finally sold it to a East European faker, who is going to re brand those as 'Telefunken'. Well, we will see on Ebay if that has happened. The faker must have payed almost nothing for it, and when he bough the whole lot, the world is going to be flooded for the next decades, with "original" Telefunken Germany tubes, which are re branded Thomson made in France. Sales of those is expected to begin early 2016, I was informed by a source, who never told me something that was wrong. So when the rare-and-almost imposible-to-find TFK 6080, pops up in 2016 EVERYWHERE in quantities, and not even so expensive, and crispy new boxes... What else do I have to say? Well, there IS something additional to say! Just do the following:
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E80CC Fake or not Fake?
The pictured tube has inside plates that remind me of large plate ECC82, and it doesn't look like an E80CC at all. Still the filament current is the same as with a real E80CC, and obviously the cathode is larger than an ECC82 also. So is this a fake? I don't really know, but for me this tube is useless. I mean, a fake is a tube with false brand and/or printing on it. However, I seriously doubt for this 'CV' E80CC, because such an original SQ datasheet was never made, and also I don't think that with those miniature plates, the original E80CC specs can be kept at all. Knowing that CV is no manufacturer, my question is: what is the real part number of this tube, and what factory made it. Here is a compare picture of E80CC (the real one) and this funny CV E80CC. Here is a nice picture of the Tungsram (original) E80CC version. |
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E80F FAKE TelefunkenWe do not picture them here, because of copyright. The picture was found on the website of a tube dealer. (who says he wants to be asked first ) E80F (=EF86) FAKES
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E83CC RSD
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Telefunken <> E88CC, used tubes re-printed, re-boxed, and packed in 100pcs cartons. Terrible case!
Make sure we talk about the same, we call such tubes also fakes, because the faking is here to make you believe you buy new tubes, but what you are getting are used tubes. Re printed extremely nice but with some mistakes, and packed in new boxes. This may be going on since quite a while, because the moment when I discover it, is sure not the moment they started with it. Also I was offered several time E88CC in boxes of hundred pcs. First time was in 2009 from France. After that most offers were from the countries around the Slovak Republic. At the moment, with NOS tubes getting rarer and rarer, and the tube users community growing so enormously, and greedy people outbid each other on Ebay... what else do you expect. Something is very wrong here, and these is a REALLY MASSIVE faking with E88CC going on. Read a detailed report about it here. |
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E188CC Fake
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ECC81 / 12AT7 'Studer' China made These are 'Studer' tubes, the famous Swiss company makes finest top class studio equipment, and personally I cannot imagine they use China tubes. On the other hand we all know such a high reputation company would never sell you China crackers as 'Studer' tubes. To me it is unknown if the Studer Company had those made officially, but if so, all things are ok. Do you think 12AT7 is a too cheap tube to fake it? Then continue below here. What follows there is a beautiful done fake job with original color logos and perfectly reproduced boxes. |
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ECC81/ 12AT7 Sylvania Holland. More Chinese tubes.I never expected such a tube as 12AT7 to be faked this way. First they took a relative inexpensive brand. Second they took a tube of which a lot of NOS is found still, and actually 12AT7 is the easiest to get (real) NOS tube. So this whole thing doesn't seem to make sense. Still the person who send me those pictures was 100% sure. So I investigated better, and I found in my collection some Chinese 12AT7, and INDEED these are exactly the same. The fakes boxes are just white boxes with a sticker over it. At first sight, you can recognize the typical 'Pan' shape of the getter, as with the China 12AT7, the glass diameter is much wider as with Sylvania, and the double mice is typical for the Chinese. If you click on each picture, you can only come to the conclusion the tubes in the top picture are fakes. |
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ECC82 FAKE
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G-73R
Looking into the calibration procedure for the 410B, as far as this tube is concerned, HP payed great attention to DC stability and drift. So it makes sense to use an aged tube for this. Otherwise you would calibrate the 410B, after the tube gets aged inside the working 410B, you would need to repeat the calibration. So I think G-73R has no "better" specifications, but it was only burned in very long. So even expected lifetime will be shorter, because the burn in hours are lost. So don't believe any BS about longer lifetime. The function of the black paint is not documented. I do not think it was for shielding, because for that, metal tube covers were used, and I am sure HP designers were aware of those. Faking the G-73R. This is the easiest thing there is. Take any used Telefunken ECC82 from Ebay, which tests good. Wipe off the texts, and spray it with black paint. A letter stamp with G-73R is easy to make, use white stamp ink, and voila another G-73R is made, for which prices of 900US$ are asked. Take some of those Styropor "bulk pack" trays, fill it up with your new made G-73, and come up with an exciting story about how you found the holy grail. I have seen stories like that already on a German website. Note, that a 25pcs bulk pack brings 22.500 US$. And why make only one bulk pack? Why not produce ten, and make 225.000 US$? Really the work is only to buy all those used TFK ECC82. Spraying 100 pcs black, you can do in one hour. May be do it in as perfect as you can, but it cost you less than a day. It would be extremely naive to think, fakers do not have the same idea already. You can recognise them sometimes by "we found one more last pair", but they have been doing so, since years. . Here is a link to a G-73R article I wrote. |
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Seen on Wikipedia: 
Made in Russia. 
This is one of those big business cases, I wrote about before. 
These are not fakes, because they're not said to be USA or Europe made, but I have no other place to put this information. 
G-73R has existed according to old Hewlett Packard documentation. It was used in the 410B tube voltmeter, and when reading on this box, it was an aged 12AU7. In the 410B documentation it is written, G-72R is Telefunken made. The voltmeter can be used with regular 12AU7 as well, but performance with G-37R is better. Hewlett Packard part number is 5080-0406, while Telefunken used G-73R. So far for what is probably true facts. 
Look what goes up on the belt, this is an original tube shredder machine.
You wouldn't want to know about the poisonous dust it produced here.
What poison can be inside radio tubes?
The best glass for tubes is lead glass. So made from lead oxide. Those wonderful 'bell' sounding wine glasses were made from lead glass too. It is believed that little bit of lead solved into the wine, is too little to worry about. But for some reason which must have been a mistake then, it became even forbidden for glass factories even to produce raw lead glass. Lead glass is nicer to make tubes from which suffer exceptional heat, like EL84 of PL509. So sure they used that for tubes. If you want to inhale that dust from that shredder machine... well I do not. Moreover, battery radio tubes in your collection have radio active cathodes, and I have seen Telefunken 1950 tubes glowing so dark, this can NEVER work well without radioactive Strontium added. Oh, well and all 845 have radio active cathodes. It's why I don't sell them at jacmusic company. 200 pcs in my stockroom? No thank you. I bet you didn't know that. But hey... you know now, so don't forget it before the end of the day. Stabilizers have radio active Radon gas inside, and mercury drops are inside rectifiers. And many other things you would not even want to be NEAR AT if there wasn't the glass bulb around it. The poor fellow in that picture that is working with the tube shredder. This man is really ruining his health. Well in those days people were quite arrogant about such issues, and even pregnant women used to smoke, and it was not considered a crime to the unborn child. So who cared if a worker is breathing a bit of dust of whatever nature. Some people never learn anyway.