ORION BLUE BOOK Guides are Awesome Sources Of Information For Your Hobbies!

 October 3, 2024

#497

Gentle reader,

When I get interested in something, I gather as much information as I can about whatever it is. Today, we do an Internet search. In the olden days (twenty or so years ago) there were thick books from ORION RESEARCH CORPORATION who did all the grunt work for you and all you had to do was open one to the pages devoted to that company's products.

Since this is 2024, I did a simple Internet search to find the image above. I, as my regular readers know, have collected all kinds of things, and these books were invaluable for my researching whatever gadget I wanted to know more about.

These are scans from the latest Blue Book I had owned many years ago. I went through photos in my computer and found each item, then highlighted each one I have enjoyed owning. What is NOT shown on these pages are the various used prices the books provided based upon their extensive research with Pawn Shops, and, I imagine, later on, eBay sales of each item. That's a LOT of research! And, the company still exists: Used Equipment Blue Book Values and Online Fair Market Value Price Guides for Guns, Computers, Audio Equipment, Musical Instruments and more by UsedPrice.com The prices which are shown are the RETAIL prices of each when new.

I lucked out some years ago, seeing a LOT of twelve or so ORION BLUE BOOK guides for a bargain price on eBay. I jumped on the auction and won. I kept the books I needed and sold the rest individually. Later on, selling each of them as well. 

Have you ever regretted selling something, thinking, "I'm never going to use/need this thing again."? Well, I have. Too many times!

Above and below are two examples.

Brochures from the original 1960's DYNACO company are in the upper photograph and from the 1990's new DYNACO company as resurrected by PANOR, a company once called Pan-Orient. In the lower image's case, I had moved on from vintage DYNACO to all kinds of other brands. In fact, all that I own now are a pair of A25XL speakers I scored for a hundred bucks via eBay. 

They are the smaller speakers. I mounted them on bamboo stools.

The brochures seen directly above the speakers image were sent to me by the then-new DYNACO company in answer to a letter I sent them (via US Mail) requesting product information. All that I could afford then (see 1990's DYNACO retail prices in the PAGE images above) was their QD-1 "FIVE CHANNEL HOME THEATER SYSTEM" unit as seen below. It is their first upgrade, thus the Series II.

It was an update on the 1970's DYNACO Quadapter.

I never owned one of the originals. Image courtesy of TMRAUDIO.COM.

However, as time has shown me over and over, and yes I do know the definition of insanity, I later found out that those expensive Panor-era Dynaco equipment would start trickling onto eBay for reasonable prices:

The first I purchased from the 1990's DYNACO company was one of their reimagining of the original DYNACO which they called: QD-1, later, I bought both updates, then the final, and the best, version, the QD-2. Which can seen above nestled between the ST-200 DYNACO power amplifier and PAT-6 Preamp/tuner. All three found on eBay.

Way back when collecting film cameras was my focus (no pun intended) I bought the McKeown's Price Guide to Antique & Classic Cameras. They were the most expensive books I had ever bought. The last edition was over $100! But, they were THE way to find out detailed information about cameras. In fact, they bought at least one camera from ME because they had never seen it before!

And below, is one of the ORION books from that lot I told you about.

Sadly, the Internet, specifically eBay put McKeown's and Camera Shows, out of business.

The Internet became invaluable to me back in the 1990s because I could connect with fellow collectors around the world. As an example, The Argus Collectors Group . Later, a fellow camera collector, an American living in Hong Kong, invited me to be his "110 Film Cameras" expert for his (quickly failed) website: Camprice.com. HE saw the writing on the wall for McKeown's and thought that he could cash in with an Internet version of their books. He did not succeed.

This is a film image of what my collection looked like for years. So many collectors scrambled to try and find glass shelves of cabinets from stores going out of business to display their collections in.

I had a different idea, however, which I named CameraLock. There used to be website which a fellow collector in France offered to let me use to post directions-for-sale to build a CameraLock system for oneself. It had very few takers.

Let this be a lesson to you. Think really hard about something you own, which is rare or might become unavailable soon, before choosing to sell or donate it. Why? Because I JUST bought a 1995 ORION BLUE BOOK AUDIO via eBay!

I spent two days going through all my digital images of stereo and audio equipment, looking in the guide book and highlighting the information when I found it in the book. If the item was not listed, I wrote down it's equipment type and name on the bottom of the correct page.

Now, I'm on the lookout for the last ORION BLUE BOOK AUDIO via eBay!

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. Your doing so is very gratifying. I do not make any money doing these articles. It is just something I enjoy doing. That SO many people would end up reading my words is astounding and humbling to me. 

Feel free to comment below or via Facebook.

Scott Robb

#497

October 3, 2024