Mercury battery 25+ years old?

Ken Nadvornick · May 19, 2015

BrianShaw said:
I've had lousy luck freezing batteries.

Yeah, I'm not to sure how well this is going to work. I never dreamed the first cell in the set would last 10+ years. I'm quite interested to see what I have after so long. It's a standard food freezer with a defrost cycle. Don't know how or if that might have affected things.

I'll probably move it to the regular refrigerator for a few days for a slower thaw before leaving it out in cool basement for a few more...

Ken

blockend · May 19, 2015

There's still a working mercury cell in my Canon FTb.

thuggins · May 19, 2015

flavio81 said:
That is a real mercury battery, the holy grail for us camera enthusiasts. It's clearly a mercury battery because the code is "675 PX". If it had an "A" or an "U" then it would be the alkaline. I own two such Varta cells and they are identical. And they are healthy still today (2015).

So you have a pretty precious item here!

Why would this possibly be a "holy grail"? I have a couple sitting around that still worked the last time I checked, and couldn't be bothered with them. A silver oxide cell with an MR9 adapter is the perfect replacement and the zinc-air hearing aid cells work just fine too.

dynachrome · May 20, 2015

I have a number of unopened PX-13 batteries in my film freezer. Are they still good? I don't know.

Mackinaw · May 20, 2015

I bought several last-production-run mercury PX-13 batteries many years back. They've been stored in our refrigerator since then. The ones I've pulled out and checked have been fine. I use them in any of my classic 35 film cameras that need mercury batteries.

Jim B.

Mercury battery 25+ years old?

Ken Nadvornick

blockend

thuggins

dynachrome

Mackinaw

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