Not sure what to say...(mojo parts)

[Frank_NH]

I thought I had seen it all...

https://reverb.com/item/2262526-sprague-capacitor-1965-red-dime-05uf



(And you thought through-hole jfets were getting expensive!)

[Travis]

http://www.ebay.com/ulk/itm/331852206891 

[Ed Nice]

It's a good job I'm a deaf, penniless cheapskate... :)

But I guess stuff is worth what people are prepared to pay for it. And if people (probably through self interest) can reasonably justify why a $10 cap beats a $0.01 cap, then MoJo hunters will bite. And convince themselves they can tell where the extra $9.99 hits, even if it does sound exactly the same.

[Travis]

That is a bad price especially considering this cap is pulled and not even NOS.

I would not expect it to sound the same as an equal value film cap etc to be honest.

[strewel_peterson]

Right, I'm off to open an eBay shoppe to sell the wire links clipped from vintage Ge diodes I've used over the years. The sheer toan that has rubbed off* from their parent components must be worth a fortune.* "rubbed off"? I think I sould use "nano-temporally diffused", or some such other invented term?

[Beaker]

All joking aside, and I could easily add a few more, but us pedal builders are not really the target market for parts like this.

Imagine you have a genuine, all (or mostly) original 1950's vintage Gibson or Fender guitar, and the pot finally works loose and shears off the cap leg.

You can easily and cheaply stick a new one in and at a stroke chop hundred of Dollars off the value of the guitar. Or you can get a vintage correct used or NOS cap and use that. The best repair techs can solder it in and make it look like the repair has never been carried out - even to the extent of re-dusting and re-fluffing it. The result is the value of the instrument is essentially unaltered.

Looked at this way, even 50 or 100 dollars can be seen a "worth it".

I've see pots for sale on ebay that supposedly came out of 50's or early 60's vintage guitars, with an asking price of hundreds of Dollars.

It's still fookin' bonkers though!

[Andy Miller]

Beaker's right about that part of the market for this stuff.  There's also a misinformed-tone-quester part of the market.

I'm a full time tech and I see the scenario Beaker is talking about played out at many levels.  Today we had a '50s Martin in the shop with a replaced pickguard.  Whoever replaced the original guard finished the wood top underneath and applied an unpainted guard, updating it to the way modern Martins are done.  The owner was trying to get us to remove the replacement guard, remove the finish only under the guard to bare wood, replace the guard, and finish over it so it would be "as original."  It's a really difficult repair to pull off and make it look good, so much so that it's hard to charge enough for it.  But the thing that kills me about it is that even after spending $20 on a cap or $1000 on some ridiculous finish job, IT'S STILL NOT FRIGGIN' ORIGINAL!

[Frank_NH]

I agree with Andy.  Even if you replace a part with one that is "original" to another unit, it's still not truely original.  I suppose it depends how collectors feel about that and how it affects it the value of a vintage effect.

The funny thing about capacitors is that they have a shelf life (at least electrolytics do), and I don't know why you would want an old part like that which could potentially fail or be noisy.  But there obviously is a market, else no one would be putting up auctions for these "original" parts...

(BTW - the capacitor I linked to sold at the asking price!!  Gather all your NOS parts and start selling...)

[negativefx]

I just ordered 500 of these from this guy.  Did I get ripped off?    ;)

[motterpaul]

yeah - but have you seen this one?



This is supposedly a different cap inside of a "Bumblebee" casement. From what I gathered, this came from Gibson itself, though I could be wrong about that.

I saw Sprague caps on eBay going for 4 for $110: