[Jamie]

I recommend that you don't spend a bunch of money of a tube tester when you first start out. The main priority is to just get a decent tester with sockets for all kinds of tubes. Many testers will only have four or five sockets, and you'll quickly realize that won't work.

I picked up a Knight RK-520 at an estate sale for $10 and, after recapping, it does a fine job for me. It has sockets for just about every style of tube and it will weed out the dead, shorted and weak tubes. It's not nearly as nice as a Hickock, but the money I saved allowed me to acquire a larger tube stash. If I have doubts about a certain tube, I just swap it out.

One of these days I will stumble across a good deal on a Hickock and then I will upgrade. If you are just starting out, you need some safety equipment, signal gen, soldering station,DMM, etc... and your money is better spent there...