Sad State of Amateur Radio / Citizens Band Radio / Ham / Etc.

I received a call this week from a nice elderly gentleman who wanted to sell his radio collection. Ham/CB/Amateur…Transceivers, Transmitters, Receivers, Tuners, Amplifiers, Etc, etc. This was not an ordinary persons collection…there were thousands, and I mean thousands of rigs, amps, you name it. Stacked up on shelves in house just dedicated for storing radio equipment. Upstairs, downstairs, everywhere were 1000’s of mostly vintage equipment. Collins, Johnson, Yaesu, Hallicrafters, National, you name it, it was there. He even had a few Johnson Desks. It was without a doubt the largest collection of vintage equipment I could even imagine. At first I went there to purchase the equipment as it was presented to me on the telephone. When I got there to meet up with the owner, well that’s when I started to get an uneasy feeling. He said he was stopping off to get something to eat before meeting me at the location that I was already sitting in front of. Quite rude, and simply wrong after I drove two hours in bumper to bumper traffic. Ok he shows up, a nice enough older gentleman with two other younger guys. I am led into the house and told browse around. Fair enough, every square inch of this property was filled with vintage amateur radio gear. If I didn’t see it with my own eyes I wouldn’t of believed it. The elderly gentleman is stating he has millions of $$$ in equipment. At first it does appear that way but thinking logically who wants this stuff? Very few if anyone locally uses Johnsons, B&W’s, Collins, Cleggs, and Hammarlunds anymore. Where could he really sell this stuff? It weights a ton to ship, plus dealing with ham people is more times then not an enjoyable experience. Then it hit me, this old fella appears to be in fair to poor health and in his mind he thinks it’s still the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s, when guys like Artie Windjammer ruled the CB on Channel 15 with his Johnson 500’s. In his mind he thinks the few local remaining hams are on 75 and 10 meter AM. Even CB radio is dead except for the mobile truckers on channel 19. Few old timers are on using mid-century tube equipment if they are on at all. For one reason or another the old fella was telling me he is not on good terms with his family and not giving them anything. So in reality when he no longer is able, all of these once radio treasures are going to end up as scrap. Really…who else other then a guy like me would even bother with it? And even I would have my reservations. I would have to rent a small warehouse to hold it all, hire a load of strong help and market and sell this stuff which 11 out of 10 times needs repair so I would have to sell for parts/non-working regardless of operation condition. The only place to sell this stuff is on ham sites and ebay. Packing/shipping/dealing with anal/dishonest/cheap/mean/geriatric hams is no picnic. Multiply that times many thousands and it’s not such a great deal for any price.  So even I wouldn’t take this monstrosity on unless it was so cheap I couldn’t refuse. Mean while the five different pieces of equipment I asked this radio hoarder for he said they were buried or he didn’t like them. So I walked out with nothing. Reflecting on the whole experience I feel sort of sad. All of this equipment was the cats meow in the 1950’s and 60’s. By the 1970’s much of it was being discarded do to size, disappearing service and lack of repairmen. In the 1980’s there was a slight resurgence in the use of boat anchors but moving on it just disappeared. I can’t remember the last time I communicated with a operator using a dow key, etc. And what’s really sad is that this guy still thinks he has house full of gold when in all likelihood it will end up at a metal or electronics scrap yard. Another comment that made no sense,( ” No one’s gonna make money off of me hahhahahaa.”) A realization, many of the remaining old time hams are moving into 55 and older communities where antennas are not allowed. So not only is the future ham community non-existent but the present is also diminishing quickly. You couldn’t even rationalize or use common sense with this old guy…again, sad but true.