The PHILCO Phorum

After discovering my lack of very small capacitors and the need for yet more goodies I stumbled upon a 3.9 pound box of NOS resistors as many sellers have a large variety of different items. The seller provided over 5 pictures and   what the heck there is a HUGE  portion of purdy colorful dog bones that my Philco 444 uses all with long leads and even the solid colored bones other European sets that I have use! Well well well $30 USD or best offer so I offered $15 and they are coming my way for $25 shipping all the way from Israel but what the heck my VE301 and 444 came from across the pond so this is a minor detail.  Anyway this same seller has an assortment of those ceramic tubular molded caps also unused and many different values.. I have not often run across these years ago but I also seldom got radios from the 30's or older either. Are there any radios from pre war era that these were typically used in? Being a ceramic capacitor they should be as resilient as the Mica and Disk Ceramic as well? These I noticed are comparable  in very small values like Mica as well, are solid red in color and in other places I have seen these Tubular Ceramic with color dots on them like the dog bone resistors. As for the desirability please let me know and the solid colored ones with the values stamped on, they are probably like the European dog bone resistors that are solid red or gray with resistance values stamped on them as well.
As for dog bone resistors, well there are links showing how to replicate them in various ways and one UK seller has 24 NOS colored dot variety of dog bone resistors for the modest price of GBP35 and GBP18 for shipping, a second set for sale as the first like it sold fast. This is a picture of the ones currently for sale.

Steve makes replicas.

As for the resistors themselves, if they are within tolerance (could be, never used) then they are usable, but check first. Gosh knows, aging can also be a factor in the drift.

Those all appear to be 10%. So they were better than most of that vintage, but that doesn't mean they still are.

If they are good, I would use them, since they have remained stable this long.

I would find it very debatable if unused will change much in value. Some of mine in my Philco have increased in values, some have decreased and this is under use for over 70 years. I have new or should I say NOS resistors many I accumulated over the years including "grab bags" of various values and types including carbon and many are close to spot on of indicated values. Yes I saw those Steve made with the Philco tools being a major clue of the artist BUT it costs me less to purchase items from Israel, UK, Germany etc. due to my limp $ and DON'T get me started on that Global Shipping Program with all the bogus tacked on "import" fees I seldom if ever pay. That Philco 444? It flew across the pond as well as my Volksempfanger with ZERO duty. There are a pare of red body green dot black end bones in my 444 that test at 3meg instead of 2 and I'm waiting for what arrives to see if there is a replacement or another possibility I have been pondering is putting a 6meg in parallel sneakily hidden within the capacitor block to reduce the resistance down to 2. A number of the others test slightly smaller in resistance so who knows? Which came first the chicken or the egg? Were they off from new in value, did they increase or decrease with use? All I know is the two 2 meggers don't vary in value at all during heat gun torture and heat from unsoldering and reinstallation so I would bet a dollar for a doughnut the parallel scheme would work just fine?
Now pardon me being a bit off topic but I never noticed voltage ratings of those big old or old style resistors before and now all of this metal film and film resistors in general have a voltage rating and from what I read partially is due to that smidge of coating being susceptible to arc through. I will take my chances with NOS bones with the exceptions of capacitors.

Some will change in storage, even if they are never used.