Well gentleman,
As older people use to say, "don't count your eggs before they hatch". I must admit I was still concerned whether the deal would go through as planned. I drove over the the gentleman's home in a quaint part of Baltimore County. When I arrived he had the Technic RS 1506 set up and recording. He has a fatastic playback system so I was able to listen to all aspects of playback and record. All of the buttons and VU meters seem to work well. The tape heads looked very good with minimum wear. The recorder was as quiet as a mouse or nat (smile). The one thing I noticed, this machine is not that gentle at the end of the tape during fast forward or rewind. That being said, it appears to be an excellent tape deck and I can see why it was chosen over others to be the deck of choice for the Tape Project.
The seller is a consultant who works out of his home. The amazing thing was that we both love jazz and spent a long time talking about John Coltrane, Chet Baker, Stan Getz, Reggie Workman, Philly Joe Jones and many others. Of course he had never heard of Maria Schnieder so I had to make him aware of the great female talent. He is also an audion enthusiast and we discussed various audio stuff to enclude Krell, Conrad Johnson, Audio Research and more.
Bottom line, I walked out with a pristine Technic RS-1506 for $200. Initially I thought the price was $150. However, I still think I got a great deal especial considering the condition of the recorder. Plus he gave me 10 (10inch) reels of tapes with pristine TDK reels. I plan to keep most of the tapes because some of them were "on location" recordings of local jazz groups.
Now, if I can just sell this house and get anywhere near the price I would like to get, I can then get the recorder over to Doc B and Paul and have them do their thing to it. I wanted to keep everyone here in the loop on this and I feel very good about this transaction. Thanks for all of the advice. As always I do appreciate.
Bob Williams