A friend of mine recently was very generous and sent me four used 4CX800 / GU74b which he didn’t need anymore. The tubes were traveling a while and through several non-EU countries. Today the parcel finally arrived. I have already heard wild stories about customs, but I didn’t expect this: Customs drilled holes in two tubes and later opened them with a saw. Check out the pictures.

Can you believe how mad I am?

Above, both damaged tubes

Customs drilled a hole in the heat sink and thereby also damaged severely the inners

This is the other tube. Here they tried to open the tube with some kind of screwdriver or plumber

The anodes of the broken 4CX800 tubes; note: you see the damages from drilling on the left anode

A look at the ceramic insulator and the anode heatsink

And finally another look into the heatsink

Did I already mention how angry I am about these incompetent customs officers????