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In the last 6 months I've seen more 670s crop up for sale than in the last 10 yrs...My take would be that the owners want to sell them whilst there's still some life left in the tubes. 6386 are getting very scarce, not to mention that you want to match them for optimum performance, so that will increase the price dramatically bearing in mind a lot of 6386s vary like hell in terms of quality / microphony on a tester...
The 6386 has NO genuine equivalent, therefore as Fletcher correctly states, a 670 with 2C51 / 5670s is not the real deal. the remote cutoff in a 6386 means that it can apply high levels of compression without distortion, the so-called "equivalents" start to sound crap if you push them above 12dB or so GR. Be careful when buying 6386, I see a lot of fakes on ebay, and have bought limiters with them in to my annoyance...
I've got a small stash of 6386 I was planning to use in a 670 clone. Due to their life-expectancy (and cold-feet on building a 670 "clone", wonder why?) I'm now planning to get something like a Manley vari-mu to make them last longer, when they're gone they're gone...
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