There is still a small company building new tubes: https://www.daliborfarny.com/
Just to offer a potentially interesting anecdotal data point (or depending on your interpretation, three data points) I have had three IN-18 tubes running pretty much 24/7 on the same three digits since 2008.
My friends and I put it together in a box as a street address sign. It contains the minimum viable circuitry; there's no logic or surge protection of any kind. It lives plugged into an AC outlet and glows 342 from my bookshelf.
It looks awesome. IN-18 tubes are one of the biggest available. If you're going to use Nixie Tubes, my $0.02 is that you should always go for the most impressive ones available because you only live once.
The location is long gone, but every passing year I am more impressed with the longevity of these tubes. If there's a takeaway from this story, it's that in my lived experience, cycling the digits to increase longevity is almost certainly more mythology than necessity.
The author has a great youtube channel - DiodeGoneWild. His teardowns of vintage (eg. soviet RF tubes) and contemporary (eg. various products of chinese ingenuity) are worth checking out.
Love to see Diode Gone Wild here! One of the best YouTube electronics channels
MORE SALT?
The Nixie Tube Watch I received from Kickstarter is as wonderful as it looks:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1944794242/timeless-ele...
Iconic time clock used in the time-travel anime 'Steins;Gate'.
Wikipedia says it is "considered one of the best anime series of all time by critics and fans alike.". [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steins;Gate_(TV_series)]
There are very active technical discussions of nixies going on here
Does anyone know the significance of the letters for the symbol tubes?
> All symbols of Tesla ZM1047 (T S F N Z Y G H M X).
Are those letters particularly useful?
I love how Petzold's Code went over the details of switching segments for a clock using these tubes.
Technology Connections' Alex has a great video on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGT1EvmDJh4
Obligatory shout out for the Techmoan Youtube channel, he loves these things and has had a bit of quest over the years [1] for new and interesting ones (and lesser alternatives). All of his latest ones come via a Ukrainian company, Millclock [2].
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I wanted a nixie clock and there are three options:
1) Build yourself, using second-hand tubes (typically 'new old stock' which means Soviet-era but unused) and your own PCB or a kit. Lots of these kits online, but be warned it involves high voltages, so not a good beginner project. IN-12 tubes are small and easy to find, larger tubes are more expensive.
2) Pay someone else to make a hand-made one - very expensive
3) Buy a Chinese one. Some of these use real nixie tubes (add 'IN-12' to your search) and cost $50-ish. There are many products titled nixie tube that actually use LCD screens and look terrible.
I settled on the PV electronics QTC kit and some tubes from eBay that were pre-soldered to QTC mounts. They can literally just be plugged into the kit and replaced easily if they fail.