Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Robinson, who shares a link to this Radio-Dakar QSL card that just sold on eBay for $1,195 US:
As Dan stated…“Holy Crap!”
Checking out the bidding history, it appears there was definitely a bidding war going on, with the buyers entering substantial bid increments.
This QSL card started out life on eBay at $9.50 with free shipping.
Amazing.
If you did not earn it. WHY? It is like buying someone elses mounted deer head and saying your a great hunter.
Most QSL card collectors are simply trying to preserve the history of this aspect of radio broadcasting. It’s more of an archivist pursuit. Each year at the Winter SWL Fest, QSL card collectors bring binders of cards for others to view.
Simply insane. I have to wonder if this seller will actually collect the money. I’ve known people to bid $1000 on an item worth $75 because they wanted to ensure their proxy bids would win an auction while thinking nobody else would dare go over $100 for the $75-valued item. Isn’t most – if not all – of the enjoyment behind receiving a QSL Card is the person who rcvd it successful heard the transmission?
A garage sale gave up a shortwave listeners ring binder full
of cards amounting to over 4 thousand dollars on ebay ten years
ago. A man in Hamilton Ontario spent many years to collect
what went away in 6 months to happy buyers
Anybody know how it is that this particular QSL is fetching such a price?
I wish I had saved my Radio Peking calendar from 1975 but I tossed it several years later. Full color, big glossy photo of Red Chinese agricultural ministers standing next to a 25 ft. tall crop of hemp. (LOL). Those were the days. That month of the calendar is probably worth a fortune on eBay today. I send my heartfelt best wishes for Zhou Enlai that year along with a reception report or two. No regrets. He was always a good man in difficult situations.
Anyone else still have their “Little Red Book” received from Radio Peking?
I guess this is what you are looking for. Red plastic cover with title in yellow: “Quotations from Chairman Mao Tsetung”. Size: 9,5 x 6,5 centimeters.Second VestPocket Edition 1972.
I got it as a gift from Radio Peking 19790130. 312 pages. Well kept, in very good condition.
Hesitating to parting from this rarity, but I do not even know if you are trying to get hold of a copy. Please tell me what you are after.
Old DX-er, who started listening in 1952.
73 from Roland Sigge
I received a lot of gifts from there when I was DX-ing but never the Red Book- And I started DX-ing during the Cultural Revolution.
Since I was a Maoist I did have the book though..
73’s!
I never got the Little Red Book either, but my favorite gift (which I still have) was a little brown book entitled “Chinese for Beginners” (1976 edition)
Lesson Plan
1. Learning Chinese
2. Xie Wen’s Family
3. Buying Things
4. In A Restaurant
5. Excursion to Fragrant Hill
6. in a Hotel
7. A Letter
8. Seeing a Sports Exhibition
9. Peking’s Four Seasons
10. Seeing The Doctor
11. Visiting a People’s Commune
12. Attending A Film Reception
13. Visiting the Red Flag Electric Machinery Plant
14. A Purse
15. Travelling in China
16. Lenin’s Overcoat
17. “We are One Family”
18. Ten Eggs
19. A Story About Doctor Bethune
20. Orphans But Not Alone
21. The Great Wall
22. The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains (A Fable)
23. Mister Dongguo and the Wolf (Playlet)
24. Review of Basic Grammar
The lessons are given in the ‘putonghua’ (common speech) Mandarin dialect with simplified Chinese characters and pinyin transliteration. There is also a nice Chinese to English word list at the end of the book. My favorite phrase comes from the opening paragraph of Lesson 23: “huanghuangzhangzhangde” (“in a fluster”) in the following context:
Mu kai shi (curtain opens when)
Dongguo xiansheng ganzhe lu zai lushang zou (Dongguo Mister driving donkey road on walking)
lubeishang tuozhe yige koudai (donkey back on carrying a sack)
koudaili zhuangzhe shu (sack in containing books)
Lang huanghuangzhangzhangde cong houbian paolai (wolf in a fluster from behind runs up)
Never became proficient, but still working on it, LOL
Seeing your comment about the 1975 Radio Peking calendar, I dug down to the bottom of an old storage trunk and found a treasure trove of Radio Peking material: calendars from 1977, 1978, 1979, 1981 and 1982. I don’t have the 1975 calendar, but the one from 1978 is a very colorful 14″ x 21″ wall calendar with painted scenes and calligraphy from the countryside, but alas. no hemp production scenes, Lol.
Also 9 PEKING REVIEW propaganda magazines from 1976/1977. The one from September 13th, 1976 proclaims “Eternal Glory to The Great Leader and Great Teacher CHAIRMAN MAO TSETUNG!”
Found a couple of glossy 1976/1977 China Pictorial magazines, as well as a couple of CHINA RECONSTRUCTS magazines from 1976/1977.
I was just a kid in High School that sent a reception report to Radio Peking to get a QSL, but its surprising the FBI didn’t stop by to have a chat with me one day, LOL