What's the oldest piece of gear in your system?

I think my oldest piece went out the door a few months back. It was made in about 1961, was in mint shape and said "Marantz" with a serial number of "#81" on it. I traded it for a Hewlett-Packard Spectrum Analyzer Mainframe with several freshly calibrated plug-in modules that were fully guaranteed. When brand new, this equipment listed for about $30,000. Needless to say, it was a deal that i couldn't pass up.

The guy that i traded with owns a Cal Lab and is an avid Marantz collector. He told me that this was the nicest 8 that he had ever seen, hence his willingness to part with the equipment that i got in return. It will probably blend right in with his Marantz 2 and 9 mono-block's. I later traded him a Marantz 7 that i had "laying around" too : )

Other than that, my next oldest is probably a Harman-Kardon A-300. This is a beautiful old tube tuner that has an all copper chassis and cage on it. Believe it or not, the copper still gleams and i've never cleaned it with any type of metal polish, etc... I can't find any info on it, so if anybody knows anything about it or where i can find info about it, i'd love to hear from you : ) Sean
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Sean THANK YOU. That Harmon-Kardon was taken from my car many years ago and now you have found it! Just send it to my home address and I will take care of the polishing up on that old copper chassis.

By the way, do you remember those LP's that were really great sounding that you found at a good deal? Those are mine too, just send them along in the box with the HK.

I buy a lot of vintage stuff, so I always have old stuff. I guess the oldest item I have that I have kept, is a Marantz 8b. It has been in my family since 1963, and is the item that got me interested in audio in the frist place. I keep it for sentimental reasons: My father purchased it new. Yet, every now and then I like to hook it up and listen to it. It never stops amazing me how this little box with glowing orange lights can create such wonderfull sound. It always brings me back to my childhood when I listen to it. It is a fine instrament, like the great violins of Europe, the Guarneri and Stratavarius. That is how it think of it, as a great work of art.

tha' tuna.

I think its the UTC A-20 600/600 ohm bridging transformer (1940's?) I use to convert my cheap jogging cd player to mono before feeding it to the 50's Grommes Little Gem int. amp driving a 1954 Klipschorn. 5Hz to 50KHz BW and seperate 150 ohm windings makes it a very useful stereo to mono converter!