Amazing finds! $1300 Spendor LS3/5A speakers for $10 !

Gentle reader,

It has been a while since I've posted. I've had some headaches with insane buyers on eBay. I sold the Sansui Classique integrated amp and matching tuner to a guy in Illinois. Well, someone with FedEx must have dropped it. The amp was dinged and something inside is broken. While communicating back and forth with the buyer, something inside him snapped and he filed a complaint with eBay which caused PayPal to freeze those dollars in my account.

I could not reason with the guy, he finally announced he was shipping them to eBay's president! So, I called eBay and they read our messages and agreed the buyer was nuts. They threatened him, so he shipped them back to me finally. Here they are before the damage:
The other buyer was buying the Pioneer integrated amp and matching tuner. He wanted to pick them up, I said, "Fine, but please pay me through PayPal less the shipping." I sent him a new invoice to that effect and waited for him to pay me. Something in HIM snapped and he somehow assumed that I'm an idiot that doesn't speak or read English and filed a complaint telling eBay that and that he hadn't received the item! So, I filed a complaint that he hadn't paid me yet! eBay ruled in my favor. He continued to message me with insane messages demanding I sell him the units. I told him in no uncertain terms that he would NEVER get my items and asked eBay to ban him.
Here's the Pioneers:
WHEW!

On a positive note, I have found some awesome bargains. First, I found another Pioneer SX550 for $14.99, a vintage mint-in-the-box Denon DP45F turntable also for $14.99. The former sold for $30, the latter for more than TEN TIMES that! Fierce bidding over the Denon. Here's the Pioneer receiver. (Actually, this is the 750, a little larger than the 550, but you get the idea):
Here is the Denon from the top and on the box:
The next week, I found a Sansui AU-717 integrated amp for $60 and the best yet, a pair of Spendor LS3/5A speakers. I'd never heard of Spendor, and they were not priced, so the guy looked at them and said, "$10?" "Sounds fair to me." Here's the Sansui:I came home and looked them both up. The Sansui sold for $550 in 1977 which is over $2050 today! Even better and a SHOCKER to me, the little Spendors sold for $1295!
Here they are with the speaker covers off and the large A/D/S/ towers in the corner, the Paradigms on top of the BOSE 301s and those two sets hooked to the Sansui:
And here just the three of them with the covers back on.
BBC states the grilles actually help the sound out. Research: BBC LS3/5A and Sansui AU-717 to learn more, if you wish.
They were designed by the BBC which had a need for small monitors for remote broadcast trucks and such. They needed to be highly accurate. This was in the 1970's. They licensed the design to three British high-end speaker makers.

Spendor made them from 1985 to 1995. I couldn't get over the price they sold for and especially what I got them for.

How do they sound? Amazing. The articles all caution that they are not meant to be played loud as they only handle 50 watts. I'm going to wire them through the sub-woofer which will cover the bass.

Being the "holiday season" is upon us, I am suspending further eBay activities until January. Hopefully, the insane people will NOT bid on my stuff!

Thanks for looking!

Scott

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