[Christof]

After purchasing a couple pairs of monoblock amps and a pre, my tube cache has grown to be quite a mess.   I have about 30 tubes which are missing or only contain partial painted labels and I have no idea of what they are.  They were all included in the sale of the various equipment I purchased.  I do know that they should all be either 6L6G, 12ax7 or 12au7, since that is all that the amps and preamp use.  They are all basically the same size, with exception of the 6L6g, and have the same pin pattern...any ideas how I identify them?  I even have some strange Russian tubes which are labeled but nowhere does 12ax7 or 12au7 appear on the tube or box.

Thanks for any help.

Christof

[Dan Driscoll]

After purchasing a couple pairs of monoblock amps and a pre, my tube cache has grown to be quite a mess.   I have about 30 tubes which are missing or only contain partial painted labels and I have no idea of what they are.  They were all included in the sale of the various equipment I purchased.  I do know that they should all be either 6L6G, 12ax7 or 12au7, since that is all that the amps and preamp use.  They are all basically the same size, with exception of the 6L6g, and have the same pin pattern...any  ...

Those designators are primarily used in the US, different designators are often used in other countries. There are also many interchangeable variants  of those tubes that also have different designators. For example, a 12AU7 is often also known as an ECC82 and a 12AX7 maybe called an ECC83. A 5751 is a military variant of a 12AX7.

What designators are on the tubes you have? I wouldn't necessarily trust the boxes unless the designators match or you know positively that is the box that particular tube came in and they haven't been mixed up.

Here are a couple of websites that sell tubes. You can use the directory and search features to help ID your valves.

http://store.electron-valve.com/
http://www.worldtubeaudio.com/

This site has datasheets for a lot of tubes, which can help you determine where you can use them.

http://www.duncanamps.com/tdslpe/

[Christof]

I'll see if I can ID some of them