oldest tube(s) in your system

Pair of 1945 JAN Sylvania 6SN7W and a Tung Sol round plate black bottle 6SN7 of unknown vintage in the front end of a Cary Audio 300B SEI LX20. The Sylvania’s are the best sounding pair of 6SN7s I own, and I own plenty! In fact, too many. 

@xenolith  The neon actually fires when DC is switched on. It regulates the screen voltage on the screen grid of the 5693 (6SJ7) driver tube. The output voltage is set by a resistor network on the driver's grid. 

@noromance Beautiful piece of gear!  Thanks for sharing the photo.  Love the eye tube too!  Does it ’close’ (or is it open?) at 325v?

@noromance that’s awesome!  Thanks for the reply and especially for the photo of that sexy critter!  Wonder how many provide such an awesome power supply to  their otherwise factory power supplied gear.  I’m in awe of may of you for your talented tube gear applications.  Fremer used to refer to "hair shirt audiophiles"; ha,  we don’t wear it if ain’t worth it!

Guys (going out on a limb here) like you make me feel tame and timid audiophilia-wise.  Will be notifying mrs. x of my audiophilic timidity shortly :).

@larryi yours and your friend’s amps; wow!  Any chance for a photo of the $30k per pair tube amp unicorns?

Thanks all for a fun thread! 

I have a pair of RCA (Radio Corp. Of America) JAN CRC 12sn7GT..one is 1943 the other is 1945. The coolest part about these 2 is I have the original boxes..& all sides & flaps are pretty much intact. Order & contract # printed on the box. Long list of patent #'s provided on the inside folded sleeve that holds the tubes.  U.S. ARMY U.S. NAVY wartime tubes man. I use these in my DIY 12/6sn7 preamp. 

I also have a pair of 1944 RCA JAN CRC 5R4GY rectifiers with the Double slanted getters. I switch one of them in & out in my Icon Audio preamp that is pretty sensitive to rectifier changes. 

I grew up working with my Grandmother that owned 3 Antique stores. I've always found old stuff to be pretty cool. When I was a young teen in the early 80's I would come across lots of vacuum tubes & electronics when we would do estate sales. Old people would pass away & my granny would get hired to go through these houses to price out & then sell the contents over a few days to the public..also having 1st pick of what she wanted. I had no idea what I had access to then. But to be fair tubes were still very cheap back then. Had I known I would have been hoarding tubes & radios from an early age. 

My oldest tube is a Cunningham globe 46.  It has two test stickers indicating that it was tested and found ok in 1936 and 1938.  Clearly it was made no later than 1936.  The tube works just fine.  Back when I used my 46 amps as daily drivers, I tried a number of 46 tubes including these Cunningham; my favorite set however were RCA.

I gave a photo of the Cunningham but I am not sure how to post it.