HISTORY:
In a previous life I owned and operated an audio post production facility which dealt in media of many different types, including mag tape. All of the large 10.5" Ampex reels & spun Aluminium NAB adaptors have found new owners, now I am working through the smaller reels which are mainly plastic, with the exception of this one.
No tape is left - I only had a limited amount of new blank tapes anyway
At first I thought "Oh some more 641 tape" but opened up the AMPEX box and I was greeted by this nice metal AKAI 7 inch reel ...
AKAI - Reel To Reel (R2R) 1/4" Spool
7" diameter
Metal (brushed Aluminium) with the Aqua Blue AKAI logo screen printed onto the metal (both sides)
Three centre bolts which can be removed which allows for the two halves of the reel to be separated. With other spools we found these bolt systems to be pretty handy as we often would be "spooling off" client tape (for copyright reasons) which creates a nice tight pancake of tape - easy to then destroy or dispose off.
Empty - no magnetic tape is supplied with the reel
Boxed in an old AMPEX 641 hinged cardboard box. Looks a little "old and mildew affected" but it's not too bad
COSMETIC CONDITION:
USED
Clean
Straight (no warping!)
NO signs of reel stress
NO scratching although I do notice little 'dots' on each side, I tried a metal cleaner but these would not budge - quite frankly I don't know what has caused these dots. My first thought was oxidisation, similar to Aluminium "rot" but no ... it just doesn't look like that. While you can quite easily see these dots, it's really not a big issue - this reel would still look great up on a typical AKAI GX Series machine ... Oh my!
I have now packed the reel within a sealed clear plastic packet for dust & dirt protection and placed it inside the outer AMPEX box.
This little "package" has also been inserted into a clear plastic package - ready to leave home and take an adverture to another R2R machine out there somewhere!
