Newbie w questions bout germ transistors

[Jamers]

I came across these germ transistors on a box I bought at a garage sale: 2n699a x7, jan 2n333, 2n327ax3, 274, 2n430, 2n344a, and a sp1101c1. Anyone have any experience w these? I haven't tested them yet for leakage or gain

[Jamers]

Also .. Do resistors go bad over time? I got a clothes basket of resistors but I'm guessing they are 20 plus years old. Had a ton of radio stuff

[Kipper4]

Time to get the DMM out and do some testing. You have nothing to lose
Welcome to the forum.

[therizky]

You bought it or not?

Better buy it. Most germanium transistor are low gain that would sound great for fuzz pedals. You could nail some vintage tones.

[Jamers]

Correct. 16$ and it came with thousands of resistors ( a laundry basket full) and tons of bags of caps ect.. I assume most caps won't be any good due to age.

Do old resistor stay good? Btw it came w an old 8mm camera and family photos. I guess the guy was into radios and died in his 80s

[Jamers]

The more I research I find alotta these are silicon but in a to-5

[psychedelicfish]

The more I research I find alotta these are silicon but in a to-5

Well, put together a Si fuzz face on a breadboard. You might find that you prefer the sound of a Si FF to a Ge one. I would start with the 2N699A, which seems to have a reasonable gain and is an NPN, meaning you can make a negative ground FF.

Assuming you mean 2N274 when you said 274, you've got a PNP germanium transistor that should have enough gain for a fuzz face or a rangemaster. I also assume that you mean 2N43 when you say 2N430. The 2N43 should also have enough gain for a FF or RM.

As for resistors, they may have drifted a bit with age, but they should still work fine (just measure the resistance before you use them). Some types of capacitors will dry out with age (mostly electrolytic or Paper-in-Oil), but others will be fine. "Mustard caps" and "Tropical Fish" seem to age reasonably well (google these if you need images). The thing about capacitors is that unless you need them to withstand reasonably high voltages (like in a valve amp), there's really no point to using old capacitors. Anything you hear about the type of capacitor affecting the sound is almost certainly absolute rubbish.