Do we really want these in vintage???

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i imagine this 1907 vibrator has made quite a few WOMEN speechless TOO, in its lifetime. and *hand cranked* no less...
 
Very Versatile Vibrator........

H-mmmmmm... Looks like it would be wonderful for whipping up egg whites. ;-)
 
Say what?

Instructions, (actual):

1- When screwing in applicators, start carefully or you will spoil the threads.

2- We make special applicators for different parts of the body. Send for price list.

3- Oil frequently with a good (machine) oil. Squirt a few drops on the ends of the shafts, at each side of the case, and allow it to work in.

4- A bottle of suitable oil and a small convenient squirt-can for applying will be sent postpaid on recipt of 25 cents.

Special offer: Exchangable for 6 months for electric model.

...ah life before the internet.

is it getting hot in here, or is it just me?
 
Well I nevah!!!

You know...this could open up a whole new can of worms for me, what comedic material I could come up with for THIS one. I won't do anything more than PG rated.

rayjay!!!! Forget the Sunbeam CoffeeMaster, I WANT this! LOL
j/k..maybe, maybe not. (it IS getting near my B-day *wink*)

Bid Bid Bid!

If I got this, think of all the folks who would want massages, at wash-ins...and then Venus could whip up some eggs for omelets! My my my, this is a very versatile tool. *snickers*

Wouldn't be too "handy" for someone with carpel tunnel tho.

I better stop...hehehe I'm not even close to being warm.
R-rated version is soo much funnier tho...LOL
 
Not what you all think-at least I don't think

I think this is (based on the provided attatchments) intended as a massager for aches and pains. I guess you could get creative though.
 
Knitwits

actually they were used for that other purpose too.

Such uses were actually prescribed by doctors for women who were overwrought, anxious, emotional. It was almost a piece of medical apparatus. Not really an implement of pleasure, more to provide relief. The back massage attachments added an air of legitimacy and did make it more versatile but there is no doubt about its prime purpose.

Chris.
 
Also Kirbys had a vibrator-have one around somewhere.Its said that to some folks was the most pleasurable part of the machine!!The current "Turbo Tool" has a massage pad with it.You used the Kirby vibrator on the flex shaft attachment that went with the Handi-Butler.You would use it like an old Oster vibrator hand held massager.
 
The Turbo Tool is an optional attachment used with the Kirby "G" series machines.Its a sander,polisher,scrubber or a massager depending on what pad you put on it.It is powered by the airflow of the Kirby.when I have used it as a sander I can barely stall it by putting my full weight on it.Its a very powerful device.when its a sander-its like the vibrator-oscillating pad sanders.It uses a 1/3 sheet of paper.It aslo uses the vacuum action of the Kirby to collect the dust-great for drywall jobs!!There is some on Ebay-you can see them there-Strange the Kirby website doesn't show the Turbo Accesory-or Turbo Tool.On one of the EBAY pictures of the device-the red pad is the massage pad.
 
well, I was not searching for those gadgets when I ran acros

That came up when I searched "vintage Eureka"
 
Oh my!, how energy-efficient!:-) Perfect for off-grid living, when you don't want to run down your PV system batteries overnight.

I suppose this is whence came the expression "it turns your crank"!
 
Certainly not where Eureka came up with the Vibra-Groomer. I had a friend who carpeted his whole house but would always buy a little Eureka Princess with one of these. I told him not to worry about trying to find this atachment after I put it away. I don't know why he would not buy an upright.

Now don't read this if you have delicate sensibilities:

When I worked in housewares at Rich's in Atlanta, we started selling Panasonic small appliances like the blenders (very interesting designs), blow dryer and the Panibrator, an large, interesting, but certainly not suggestively shaped body massager with a body like a long white column and a vibrating end that was of a larger circumference with a ribbed drum shape. One morning a phone call was answered by one of the sweetest women, of a certain age, who had recently begun working during the Christmas season. She began the conversation very normally, listening while the lady on the other end asked if the Small Electrics Department sold vibrators. Sarah demonstrated excellent product knowledge by explaining about the two different types; the type that you put on the back of your hand for a deep manual massage and then the Panasonic style. She paused and then this look of absolute horror came over her face. She was in such a state of "high horror" that when our male manager walked by, she just pushed the receiver at him, forcing him to take the call. He finished the call quickly and sent one of the other ladies to find and comfort Sarah. The caller's final request was something to the effect of,
"No, not that type. I want one shaped like your penis." I don't know which of the last two words freaked her out more. The other ladies talked about it among themselves and discussed it with a couple of us guys in the department, but the Southern males were far too gallant to mention it to Sarah.
 
Vibra-groomer

What is with people vacuuming their wall-to-wall without an upright or a power-nozzled canister?

My grandparents built a new home in 1966 and had short-shag gold wall-to-wall carpeting put in. Grandma got a new Eureka Empress, and didn't even use the Vibra-groomer. Just the straight-suction attachment on the carpeting. Thirty years later, the house is for sale (and the carpet is perfect, thanks to selective use of plastic runners :P) and my mother goes over with her Kirby Heritage to clean.

ARMFULS
of gold carpet fuzz out of the bag after
EVERY
ROOM.

Then we discovered that grandma had her gold shag w/w laid over oak floors! Of course, we ripped all the carpet out then.

Ah,
Senseless times
T.
 
Tom!

Your grandma used plastic runners too? I hadn't thought about them in years!

Did your grandma use a carpet sweeper? Mine did, and to this day, I think of it as a "grandma sound."

veg, who uses one, too
 
Hi, Veg!
Not only did she use plastic runners, but she had cut up a couple worn oriental carpets into runners which she had laid out on the parts of the house that weren't carpeted. Similarly, she bought a new couch and kept an old bedspread over it, "to keep it nice". I'm glad I didn't inherit the "cover everything with crap so somebody else can enjoy the things I worked so hard for" gene.

She had a carpet sweeper, but by the time I came along, it was put away in the basement. Her compulsion allowed her only to use the vacuum by the time I came along. There is a story that my grandfather's sister Anna came for a visit. After watching my grandma run her dustmop around the hardwood floors for the third day in a row, Anna demanded to see the dustmop, and as she expected, after dusting the floors of the whole house, it was still clean. I'm also glad I didn't inherit the compulsive cleaner gene.

Which reminds me of the Compulsion SNL commercial (from Calvin Kleen). That was exactly the way my grandmother was. While everyone else was having cake and coffee in the living room, she was cleaning the oven. Always volunteering to sit on the sharpest nail, as a friend puts it.

T.
 
Plastic runners and couch covers? She couldn't possibly have been Italian, could she? Do I smell something cooking in the basement kitchen? (Sorry Rich, couldn't resist!)

Bobby in Boston
 
Bobby--no, not Italian. She was Slovenian and she did have the stove from their old house in the basement. :) I don't remember her using it, but it was there, all hooked up.

I just remembered, she kept a pair of slippers in her Sophia Petrillo purse, and whenever she came to our house she took her shoes off and put on her slippers. My mom told her she really didn't need to do that, but grandma said she didn't want to wear out our nice carpeting. Mom told her (BTW, the grandma in question was my dad's mother) that if the carpet wore out we'd get a new one, and my grandmother was HORRIFIED at the idea.

She was a saver too--she saved cottage cheese containers, bread wrappers, the plastic tabs from the bread wrappers, egg cartons, rubber bands, twist-ties, and water--if she needed hot water, she collected the water she ran while waiting for it to get hot into plastic milk jugs that she'd saved.

Here's to colorful grandmas.
T.
 
My grandma had a carpet sweeper

a Bissell that she used regularly. She'd use the carpet sweeper every other day or so and vacuum once a week.
Grandma also had a little Hoover Handivac from the late 60's... it used a paper bag and she was always well supplied with bags. Still she would un-stuff the dirt and re-use the bag when it got full.
Too many years of using an Electrolux model XXX and Hoover model 28 to get used to disposable bags!
 
Hi deeptub. Isn't it amazing how our grandparents valued every little thing they had, and how thrifty and smart they were? I can remember my grandmother melting down the slivers of old soap bars in a pot and adding something to the mess so she could get a few more bars out of it. How I miss her!
Bobby in Boston
(and she had a carpet sweeper and plastic everywhere, too!)
 
My other grandma saved soap remnants. Heaven knows why. She didn't do anything with them. When she died we found boxes of them. She also saved string, the selvege edges of fabric (to use when the saved string ran out, presumably), and, in cigar boxes, every pay stub my grandfather brought home.

It IS a shame that people aren't thrifty anymore. I'm trying to be, but pragmatically. I mean, aren't cottage cheese containers better off getting recycled into more cottage cheese containers rather than taking up space under my sink?

But I know the grandmas, bless them, are rolling in their graves.

T.
 
When my grandma bought a new sack of sugar, she would empty it into a canister, then she would get scissors and cut apart the paper sack, including separating the different layers of paper. seems she got an extra spoonful or two hidden in the folds and layers of the sack.
 
My granny was told to START smoking to boost her circulation.

Anyhoo- she had a pipe cigarette hold and would smoke in the morning the first HALF of her cigarette with the filter attached and the afternoon HALF (unfiltered) in the cigarette holder pipe.

Ditto seltzer- the small bottle; half at a time.

She briefly had an electric stove in one apt and would cook at 4 pm. (after the soap-operas, of course!), By the time she was ready to serve dinner (at 6pm) it was stone cold. One day I went to re-heat the food. WELL! You would think I set out to ROB her of her assets, how she carried on about the cost of electricity!

ah the good old days.

PAY $ for CABLE TV??? She would have split an artery.
 
oh and one more.

As grandma aged, she would allow me into her kitchen, so I went to cook a pot of pasta. It was a chance to help out and to learn her one-pot-meal "trade-secrets". Her southrrn Greek cooking was WAY diifferent than my mother's northern Greek cooking.

{Ever see newspaper on the GAS stove- with pilot lights- as masking when frying? Beleive me it is astounding.}

She nearly died when I filled the pasta pot with cold water..

WHAT ARE YOU DOING? she was horrified. *MATIA MOU* (love of my eyes; akin to CORAZON en espanol) *We always use HOT water to start cooking, the landlord pays for that.* Oy VEY, In my mother's house we used cold- cleaner and fewer minerals.

Frugal? HA! Tighter than a clam's @$$. This is the same woman who said *Husband not cooperating? Plug it up for a few weeks (usually means your mouth) and they will give you anything you want.* I thought I would die. My Greek was better than she thought it was, apparently.
 
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