15 items from our childhood new household will never see

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That first picture could have been from my parents home. The pole lamp between the recliners. That Seth Thomas Wall clock is in moms house today. All these were in our den that in 1964 mom had paneled in light birch panel was put over horrid wallpaper with twining ivy and flowers. When the house was built in 1950 the wall paper was put in and mom told my aunt and uncle the wallpaper should grow on you. My uncle said it would have to grow on him for a long long time.
 
That Jerrold Cable box was the very first one we received from out cable company when cable came to the neighborhood in 1983. It had a long, long cord attached so you could flip through the stations from your seating position. No remote control.

I kind of miss console televisions. Some were more like furniture than electronics.
 
TVs in a wooden coffin (they make me shreak)

Thank God and congratulations newer generations never have to experience these horrible tube TV sets in their Frankenstein castle-type wooden furniture chest.

This fashion passed by leaving Europe untouched but the little time I spent in the US (just during this very period: they had these diabolical clunk-clunk channel floater dials back then, along with this fzzzzzt-wweeeept fine-tuning ring)

...that modest time I had to spend there: I mean how COULD anyone want to have a TV set in a carved wooden shrine at all?
Want me to weekly cut the claws of the lion's paws? Want to get the plastic-cut out wild vine trimmed to regrow next spring? Why have this window-blinds roll-down fence to protect that bulbous screen?
Bad enough (or just state of the art) that TV screens had to be bulging out like a fish eye, but why cover them in this horrible wooden trash furniture?
I could never get it. But rethinking it for some retro punk shop: Why not have them back around? The most repelling designs get the best prices today.
 
on the other hand: touch buttons and Jetson family's sty

McGuyver is not far away talking about Osterizers and Waring blendors with this cash register type of control board. Highly uncomfortable what comes to cleaning out the grooves of the buttons = useless in practical daily work, yet so handsomely "Jetson style" that I love it.

One thing missing on the list: Metal machines covered with PVC woodgrain plastic fronts (washers, cars, whatever you can think of)
Simply PUNK, that is ;-)

And I love 12 metres spiral cords for telephone receivers on wall units: Wind them around your ankles and around floor vases: Yielding you hours of fun dreaming away about wireless phones. Wall phones ARE COOL.
 
Not everyone ...

... had their televisinos housed in "Frankenstein castle-type" wooden chests.

Our television set was Danish modern:

nycwriter++3-1-2014-13-02-13.jpg
 
I would LOVE

To go back to a round tube color set, unless you have ever experienced one , you have never seen color tv, it is a much softer, more realistic color, like the movies used to look.not the glaring garishly bright color of today.
 
The youngsters got a couple of things wrong: First, pole lamps appeared inteh late 40-early 50s and were popular into the 60s. Second, records were not awlays vinyl. T first they were shelac and very brittle. During WWII, radio programs were transcribed onto discs for broadcast to the troops. Because of scarcity of materials sometimes the discs were made of glass covered with metal foil for the groove formation.

Typewriters are still handy for filling out printed forms and applications.

Bread warmers are still useful. The well-designed Saltons had the cloth cover so that moisture could escape and the bread did not get soggy.
 
don't give console televisions too bad a bad rap

Of the hundreds of consoles I bought as a TV/Stereo buyer for department store, I don't remember any of them looking like a burial casket. This was at a time when console electronics were falling out of favor but they still were popular. I think people bought cabinet style first and then considered picture quality. Like laundry appliances, there are those connoisseur collectors out there.

and those cabinets can be recylced...here kitty kitty

twintubdexter++3-1-2014-14-50-53.jpg
 
Fun link, Bob!

Bread warmers.  About three years ago, my friend mentioned that she remembered an appliance they had as kids that warmed the rolls.  A few weeks later I handed her a NIB Salton from an estate sale, $4.  She was elated and took it to work for a pot-luck food day..  She came home with orders for three more, another guy in the office bought one for his wife and one for the office on ebay.  I found three different cloth cover designs and even a few replacement covers NIP.  Estate sales of the last year or so haven't been coughing up as many fun treasures.

 

We had a pole-tension lamp in the 70's, ordered from Sears' catalog.  Ours was gold with three spun-thread globes in orange, avocado and yellow-gold.  It was a sight to behold when lit.  We also had a tension pole cabinet & shelf unit that fit over the toilet.  Another interior design tragedy from a catalog, no doubt.

 

 
 
Kept from childhood

I have a black rotary desk phone, always works during a power outage. My uncle took the pole lamp and made nice bases into 3 wall lamps I still have. Still have my mothers GE console color tv with click tuner that still works fine. I have some of those very breakable 78's and can play them on our old Magnavox stereo console. Have an Oliveti portable typewriter in the attic. Have my parents Seth Thomas wall clock and thats just what has been spoken about so far.
 
Used to call those bathroom shelf things Johnny pole cabinets or something like that. Dad had a pretty basic 3 lamp pole light beside his lazyboy.

I haven't seen many of the bread warmers at the thrifts either but I am seeing a lot of the electric hot trays and older crockpots.
 
I have ...

... 5 rotary dial phones in my apartment, all still in working order.

And I still use my IBM Selectric III typewriter to fill out forms, address envelopes, and write personal correspondence.
 
Unfortunately...

for the old phones, most residential phone lines are on multiplexors nowdays rather than being wired directly to the central office. And as we found out after the 2011 tornado outbreak, the batteries on those multiplexors are only good for about 12 hours.
 
I sill have several of the console TV sets. Color and b/w. I also have the rotary phones. Quite a few of them.

Here is a picture of my 1959 Magnavox console TV that I have in the living room. It is b/w and plays great.

countryford++3-2-2014-06-32-31.jpg
 
Interesting

Although I have never seen or heard of a bun warmer, apart from wood panelling (which I think is hideous!) I have all of those things in my house!

With regards to CRT TVs, I think the picture is vastly superior to LCD, plasma or LED, not to mention those horrible rear projection things you used to get! LCD and plasma always seem blurry to me, blurry and pixelated, LED I find gives a very harsh bright colour. Whilst a console TV like the ones posted would never fit inside a British house, give me an old Sony Trinitron anyday! Especially in a nice 'sensible' screen size like 19-21", not 52" like people cram into their tiny living rooms today, the picture is so enlarged it is barely watchable!

While we're on the subject, does anyone else find that their picture was better with analogue TV than digital? The sound is much flatter on ditigal, and the picture seems to be full of digital compression.

Matt
 
In regards to wood paneling, when it first came out, it was real wood. It looked nice. In the late 60's they went to a faux wood paneling, which looked cheap. The house I grew up in, back in Minnesota, had the real wood paneling in the living room. It was beautiful.

Some of the consoles were large, but they also had smaller consoles, such as the one pictured below. That one is a 1956 Philco. As you can see, it works.

I prefer analog TV. I have a digital convertor box hooked up to my TV sets, and if I get a bad signal it gets all pixalated. Where as analog TV would would just get static. You could still see the picture. Digital TV will freeze up and is unwatchable.

countryford++3-2-2014-06-58-46.jpg
 
 
<blockquote>With regards to CRT TVs, I think the picture is vastly superior to LCD, plasma or LED, not to mention those horrible rear projection things you used to get! LCD and plasma always seem blurry to me, blurry and pixelated, LED I find gives a very harsh bright colour.</blockquote> Each pixel in a plasma panel is a miniature CRT.
 
David ...

"most residential phone lines are on multiplexors nowdays rather than being wired directly to the central office."

What do you mean by this? Not sure I understand.

I think what you mean is that most BUSINESS phone lines are on multiplexors. Why would residences NOT be wired directly to the phone company?

That said, I find it incredibly frustrating in offices these days not being able to find a true "private" outside line.

[this post was last edited: 3/2/2014-10:13]
 
Since I used to work for the phone company, I know the systems inside and out. EVERY landline call placed in Maine goes thru one of 2 central office switching stations. Both have huge banks of DC batteries in case of a power outage. In the event of a long outage, both have the biggest diesel generators I have ever seen which worked flawless during this winters ice storm and the 1998 one in which power was out to places in the state for over a month. As long as the line is still up on the pole to your home, you will always have phone service.
 
Well, I still have mamy of these things LOL, what makes me pissed about reading it is the tank/barrel to burn garden leaves and such in the yard, it was common practice until few years ago over here when even in Italy this stupid law passed and so you've to pay more to town hall for waste tax to get rid of garden waste, plus filling your yard with tons of plastic bags....
I can understand making of it a local regulation, because we all know there're morons that do that in residential neighborhoods where you've houses one next to another, but in open countryside, what the hell would cause? A county thing? Even more statal ban? MORONS! We still do this at our farm and we do not care if they call firemen or such....we would throw them in the fire as well if they just say something...
We're in open Countryside and we do not give any nuisance to anyone.
There was an old man we know that had his house on an isolated small hill, he totally ignored it and started burning his leaves as he was used to....well a few idiots that were walking by called the fire dept and he was charged 600 euros fine for that, and he had no money to pay ( he gets 900 a month as pension) he could not believe what he was hearing that you're no longer allowed to burn leaves.....he cursed in any language possible and said " this is the world you young idiots are making"...he is damn right!
There're so many things they should worry today and they worry about these BS without a sense....

[this post was last edited: 3/2/2014-10:56]
 
My dad ...

... still burns his leaves, but not in a "burn barrel"; he uses a brick "hearth" out on the edge of the property.

When I remind him about the (recent) local ordinance against burning, his response is "Piss on it -- I've been burning leaves on this property for 30 years and I don't intend to stop".

And amazingly, no one tries to stop him.

Small town living. :)
 
As it should be.... As long as you do not harm neighbors one should have thie right to burn leaves, they should leave it up to local administrations...
Not make a county ban, not to mention regarding a whole state...that's idiotic.

I have sweet memories of my granpa burning leaves in our country-house, we had no barrels, just a place in the middle of a field, we used that house on sundays to gather all the family togheter and spend weekends in peace even though there was always something to do both outside and inside (it was before mu father bought the mansion), we sold the house in 2001.
I remember when we used to make huge dinners there,, me and my friends and cousins always helped my granpa for it, many travels back and forth and fun with the wheelbarrow, and then, after dinner when woods and leaves were still burning and out was dark we little kids used to gather in front of the window watching the fire...it's impressive how the simplest things amazed and entertained you as a child...
 
I have a RCA console colour TV in a beautiful wood cabinet as well as a stereo system in an equally beautiful cabinet. The stereo even has an 8 track recorder! Both belonged to my parents. I also have an electric typewriter, record player and one wall of my basement is done in pine but technically it is not wood panelling.

Gary
 

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