It's been a busy weekend for lots of reasons, and one of those of course was eBay. This Sunday saw a great many very collectible CW keys sold on eBay. I bid — and lost — on a couple, but the prices shut me out of many of the auctions.
Right now we're nearing another peak in the Vibroplex auction market. Plain, rather unremarkable (but clean) bugs from the 1940s — not particularly rare — have sold for well over $100, and that's without the very desireable Vibroplex carrying case.
The Presentation model is always a hot item, and they're going higher than usual. Blue Racers are bringing premium prices, even for recently manufactured ones that aren't really of interest to collectors. The Blue Racer, even the reintroduced one, remains a very popular key on the used market. A Blue Racer will bring more than a Vibroplex Original of the same period and in the same condition.
The Blue Racer just looks sexier, if a semi-automatic CW key can be sexy. It's more narrow and compact; perhaps it just looks less like a brick on the operating desk. I've got three Blue Racers in my collection, and wouldn't part with any of them.
The first is a 1920 Blue Racer that's just a honey of a key to use. It's on the operating desk, though I haven't used it in a couple of months. The second is a 1957 Blue Racer Deluxe in excellent condition. The third is a late model (post 2000) Blue Racer Standard with the actual blue painted base. This was priced right and virtually a brand new key.
While the “old” and “new” keys share the same name and the same size base, there's a big difference between them. The old Blue Racers were essentially scaled down Originals — all the parts were smaller, since the base was shrunk from 3 1/2 inches to 2. The key is the same length, but the damper and pivot frame are about 70 percent the size of the parts used on a Vibroplex Original model.
The company discontinued the Blue Racer in the 1970s and Mitch wisely brought the design back in 2000. In order to save manufacturing costs, the new Racers use the same parts as the Original throughout. Today's Blue Racer is simply an Original on a smaller base.
You don't really notice the difference until you put an “old” and “new” Blue Racer side by side. While you can argue it's not much of a “model” difference, I think it was great marketing, and yeah, its something they could produce without a bunch of new tooling. Besides, you just gotta dig the blue base!
Unfortunately, for someone looking for “old” Blue Racer parts, you're out of luck. None of the parts will interchange between “old” and “new” models. But the Original parts today are still the same as produced back to about 1940, and that's pretty neat for guys like me who buy broken down abused bugs and try to bring them back to life.
SO WHAT BUG WAS BUILT IN MY BACKYARD? I took a few liberties with the term “backyard” … Louisville is where a rather rare and unusual bug was built. I only mention it because one of them sold this weekend on eBay.
As any Vibroplex geek knows, Horace Martin was the man who developed and patented the Vibroplex telegraph key in 1904. The Vibroplex was built by Martin under a couple of different company names until he teamed up with J.E. Albright and formed the Vibroplex Co. in 1911.
But Martin left Vibroplex in 1920. Albright bought out his portion of the company. But Martin resurfaced in the telegraph market more than 20 years later with a new design called The Rotoplex.
The Rotoplex used a single large pivot point for the keying lever. It had no pivot frame as most other bugs were using at the time. The keying levers were split, each rotating separating on the large pivot shaft. The patent shows bearings used to reduce friction. The rest of the key is pretty routine, the pivot point was its big difference.
In 1941, at age 65 Martin was granted a patent for his new Rotoplex key. He contracted through a Louisville company, the James Clark Manufacturing Co., to build the key. Martin secured a contract with the military, though some were sold commercially. Not many Rotoplexes were made.
I've only seen two of these every show up on eBay, and the one this week was an excellent one. It sold for just over $1,500 — and probably was worth every penny. This one came from an estate, the listing said.
The Rotoplex had a one-piece finger piece — the flat paddle and the round knob found on most bugs were molded as one piece. The key also did not have feet; the entire bottom was covered with a sheet of rubber, which kept it from moving around. The key also had no terminals; the wiring exited the base on the right side, and it came with a cloth-covered cord and a wedge plug attached. A very unique key to say the least.
MAC KEY UPDATE. The Mac Key DeLuxe I received in the mail last week is operating just fine. I'll have to say its my new “favorite key” for the time being.
And I may have scored a second Mac Key DeLuxe on eBay over the weekend. A fellow uploaded a listing for a cw key and described a Mac Key Deluxe in his description. He didn't have photos, but would e-mail them to anyone who wanted one.
But the guy had a Buy It Now price that was a fraction — yes, a FRACTION — of what I paid for my new Mac Key. The listing had only been online for a few hours, and knowing how collectible any McElroy key is, I went ahead and snapped it up. Even if it is the Standard version of th key, I'll be happy. But I'm fairly sure its the DeLuxe, as he put the exact verbage from the ID tag on his listing, and it matched that found on my new Mac Key.
Sometimes you just gotta take a chance. I'll either have a jewel or a pile of crap. At least it will be a cheap pile of crap. I've done worse before and lived to whine about it.
I'm out of here for now … 73 es CUL … de KY4Z SK … dit dit ….