[Arran]

I have to ask, just who is this "best" restorer? Remember, $$$$ does not always equal the best.

Exactly right, I'm currently doing a restoration job for someone on a Canadian Westinghouse 801 Columnaire chassis undoing the last so-called restorer's handiwork. While the set worked, sort of, the wiring is an absolute hack job of splices, overloaded tie points, and crudelytacked together solder joints. I don't know what this person charged my customer for this job but it cost him $100 shipping each way to Okatoks, Alberta to have him do the work. It took me an hour just to figure out where to start, and once I started I had to stop just so I would have a chance to catch up before losing the handle on what went where.
I can also recall a case of a fellow in Ontario that tried to sell me his complete radio collection, including consoles, assorted table sets, and even a 16B tombstone. He spend $250 having some goof out there change a pair of filter caps, one or two other items like a pilot lamp or a paper cap, and test the tubes in just one set. He had the repair bill, this clown charged him $25 each for the filter caps and $40 or $50 an hour on labor, this was on a 1940-41 era Marconi console which also had a broken dial glass (not sure if that was related to the repair work or not?).
He had spent similar amounts on one or two other sets, so when it came time for me to make an offer I just could not come up with a number, he was that far under water on these things. How someone could charge such amounts for so little actual work makes me wonder how they can sleep at night. An honest restorer would have told him that the Marconi and some of the others were not worth having that kind of money dumped into it rather then making a quick buck. He must have had thousands invested in this stuff, and a lot of it was near junk.
It also did not help that he was unwilling to break up the collection, which amounted to maybe a dozen unrelated sets of various ages, makes, and models from the mid 1930s till early 50s. There were two or three sets, including the 16B, that I would have gone for but since I reside in British Columbia there was no way that buying the whole lot was going to work. It was obvious that this fellow got it into his head to buy up anything and everything without carying out even the most basic research. Buy what you know (as they say), if you don't know find out first.
Regards
Arran