EIA codes to ID USA vacuum tubes

EIA Example - Raytheon Admiral

EIA (Electronic Industries Association) codes you might find on a tube. A great resource to have when the original logo is gone or you have a generic logo (remarketed). See the post for all the codes

The picture above is a great example of rebranding. Although, Admiral did make their own tubes during early days (1930s-1940s) and even ranked #5 by volume of sold tubes at one time, later, most of Admiral branded tubes were made my somebody else. In the picture, EIA code that’s clearly visible is 280, so it was made by Raytheon. There are many rebrands like that in both US tube and European tubes. However, European tubes don’t have EIA codes and instead used Date Codes

Although, EIA is a very reliable number to identify the manufacturer, it’s not very easy to find it and in some cases it is completely missing making it practically impossible to know who made a tube. The only way then is visual inspection of a tube or reaching out to experts who can help.

  • 101 = Admiral
  • 111 = Amperex
  • 125 = Bendix
  • 158 = DuMont
  • 162 = Eimac (Eitel-McCullough, Inc)
  • 169 = Electronic Tube Corp
  • 188 = GE / KEN-RAD 188-4, 188-5 (KEN-RAD factory), 188-20 (NY)
  • 210 = CBS Hytron
  • 231 = Machlett
  • 247 = National Union
  • 260 = Philco
  • 274 = RCA (Radio Corp of America)
  • 280 = Raytheon
  • 310 = Superior Tube Co
  • 312 = Sylvania (Hygrade Sylvania Corp)
  • 322 = Tung-Sol (USA)
  • 323 = United Electronics
  • 336 = Western Electric
  • 337 = Westinghouse
  • 343 = Zenith Radio Corp (CRT’s)
  • 423 = Nortn American Philips Corp
  • 713 = Taylor (aka Cetron-Taylor)
  • 722 = Sylvania-manufactured for OEM equipment makers (Allen Organ)
  • 738 = Lewis & Kaufman
  • 749 = National Electronics (also Cetron)
  • 771 = Penta Laboratories
  • 781 = Vacuum Tube Products
  • 809 = Varian Associates
  • 879 = Litton Industries
  • 935 = Electrons, Inc
  • 1022 = Fisher branded Mullard/Telefunken/Amperex
  • 1109 = Raytheon (Japan)
  • U.S.A.3 (found on the glass envelope) = Tung-Sol
  • 8I = Toshiba (Tokyo Shibaura Electric)
Share this post:

Leave a Reply