One of the more awesome experiences in my life was being hired at age 16 to clean and paint the basement of a widow, who's husband was an electronics hobbiest/collector. The basement was filled with electronic gear from the beginning of it's era. Radio transmitters, receivers, phonograph recorders and players, testing equipment, motors, switches, shelves of vacuum tubes and circuitry, books, manuals and catalogs, old schematic posters, you name it.