Bin of electronic valves or vacuum tubes.

Thermionic Valves (or vacuum tubes as they were known in America) were the main amplifying element in electronic equipment until they were rapidly replaced by the far smaller, less power hungry transistor from the 1950s. Vital bench dressing for any early radio or TV workshop. Valves contain a heated filament which glows orange hot to "boil" the electrons off from one metal plate to another inside the thin, fragile glass envelope. You can see dozens of such glowing valves by peering through the neccessary ventilation slots of any pre 1970s TV set. Valves were very power hungry, wasting energy as heat as well as being bulky and requiring inconveniently high voltages. All that heat produced inside early radios & TVs greatly reduced the reliability of them by ageing the other components. 

Priced by the bin.

Prop ID: 7609

Width: 2 cm

Height: 5 cm

Depth:

Age: 1940s-1960s

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