Want to buy or sell something? Check the classifieds
  • The Fedora Lounge is supported in part by commission earning affiliate links sitewide. Please support us by using them. You may learn more here.

Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

Lefty

I'll Lock Up
Messages
8,639
Location
O-HI-O
Do kids still get chicken pox? I think there's a vaccine now, but I know nothing about it. I had them when the great chicken pox epidemic of second grade hit.
 

Warbaby

One Too Many
Messages
1,549
Location
The Wilds of Vancouver Island
Paris Green
Kerosene Ranges
Iceboxes
Oleomargerine that came with a packet of yellow dye.
Paragoric
Store clerks that waited on you. Respectfully.
Cars you could repair yourself
Critical Thinking
Saturday Matinees with Serials
Spud Guns
Carbide Cannons
Blowing up tin cans with carbide
Polio
KiddeCars
War Surplus Stores with real war surplus stuff
 

carter

I'll Lock Up
Messages
5,921
Location
Corsicana, TX
Spud gun

Warbaby said:
Paris Green
Kerosene Ranges
Iceboxes
Oleomargerine that came with a packet of yellow dye.
Paragoric
Store clerks that waited on you. Respectfully.
Cars you could repair yourself
Critical Thinking
Saturday Matinees with Serials
Spud Guns
Carbide Cannons
Blowing up tin cans with carbide
Polio
KiddeCars
War Surplus Stores with real war surplus stuff

Spud Guns can still be ordered online http://www.dollysmixtures.com/potat...standard&OVADID=906320522&OVKWID=144624229522 :)
 

BegintheBeguine

My Mail is Forwarded Here
LePage mucilage, with the cool coppery-red rubber tip. Please tell me this is still available, I need some.
AirWick with a real wick of fiber attached to metal that when pulled up really cleared out the funk in a room quickly. If I can't find it at Vidler's http://www.vidlers5and10.com/ then I think it doesn't exist but i'm hoping someone will tell me it's still made and where to find it.
 

Dr Doran

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,854
Location
Los Angeles
Warbaby said:
Critical Thinking

Long gone.

carter said:

Carter, have I informed you recently that you are THE MAN? That is marvellous that you know where to find those.

BegintheBeguine said:
LePage mucilage, with the cool coppery-red rubber tip. Please tell me this is still available, I need some.

My dad used to use that. Is that the one that had a logo of an anthropomorphized boar's face on the label? Orange and blue ink with white background? Or am I confusing that with RUBBER CEMENT (does that still exist?) Orange/red rubber tip, I remember that.
 

pigeon toe

One Too Many
Messages
1,328
Location
los angeles, ca
Rubber cement still exists! I would use it all the time in high school when I would make zines. My parents would occasionally get concerned that I was "huffing" it because I would spend many hours in my room with a can of rubber cement! I was just collaging! :)
 

carter

I'll Lock Up
Messages
5,921
Location
Corsicana, TX
If only the Irish had known

Doran said:
...
Carter, have I informed you recently that you are THE MAN? That is marvellous that you know where to find those. ...

Thanks, Doran, but that was an easy search. Heck, you can find plans for SPUD CANNONS :eek: online.
 

BegintheBeguine

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Don't let's start that rumor.

Gosh, no, it's not rubber cement, that's alive and well and several new jars are living in the supply cupboard at work.
It's this:
090904_fg7.jpg

LePage's mucilage, with the rubber tip with a slit in it. When you turn it over and press down the right amount of glue comes out ready to spread. Better than a glue stick, better for some things than Elmer's. Not for every glue situation of course, but that's why Gorilla Glue was invented.
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
Messages
33,835
Location
Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
You can still find mucilage in office-supply stores -- I use it to reattach labels that have fallen off radio transcription discs. And it still has the convenient spreader tip, even though the bottle itself is plastic.

As for rubber cement, it was the main reason people volunteered to join the school yearbook staff.
 

BegintheBeguine

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Thank you thank you thank you, LizzieMaine. I remembered the bottle as being plastic already, hm, maybe I've used it more recently than I thought or maybe I'm not as vintage as I thought.
The AirWick company informed me they have something similar to the old liquid stuff, but not in a glass bottle. Good, because I have a smelly basement that needs help.
Now, Waverly Wafers, anyone?
 

Dr Doran

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,854
Location
Los Angeles
Yes, I remember the slit in the tip of the mucilage thing. Rubber cement was applied with a brush that was fixed into the lid of the bottle.

The name mucilage is kinda gross, though.
 

Kassia

One of the Regulars
Messages
269
Location
West Coast of Canada
LizzieMaine said:
You can still find mucilage in office-supply stores -- I use it to reattach labels that have fallen off radio transcription discs. And it still has the convenient spreader tip, even though the bottle itself is plastic.

As for rubber cement, it was the main reason people volunteered to join the school yearbook staff.

Here it's called Contact Cement and my dh uses it all the time.. He buys it in big jars at Home Depot...
 

DerMann

Practically Family
Messages
608
Location
Texas
Just became aware of this today.

skripix1.jpg


In their heyday, Sheaffer produced bottles of Skrip with an ingenious internal "well" which would hold a small amount of ink so that you could both get the most out of a bottle of ink and not have to dunk your nib in so deep.

Well, when I first messed around with fountain pens, I was about twelve (think 2002ish). My mom was actually able to buy a bottle of Skrip (like the one above) in a local OfficeMax (of all places).

Apparently, around the millennium, the glass company that made the bottles for Sheaffer either went out of business or refused to make such a small number of them. As a result, both the manufacture of the ink and bottles were reformulated and production was moved to Slovenia. The new bottles and boxes look like this:

SheafferSkripBlue.jpg


Even though the ink isn't nearly as good as it was when it was produced in the US and the bottles lack the well, it's still a fairly good ink, just nothing to write home about.
 

Dr Doran

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,854
Location
Los Angeles
DerMann said:
it's still a fairly good ink, just nothing to write home about.

hee hee. Well, I finished a bottle of that ink quite recently and the well in the glass bottle was wonderful. I wonder if I still have the empty bottle somewhere -- I could conceivably put new ink in the old bottle.
 

DerMann

Practically Family
Messages
608
Location
Texas
Lots of people do it. Pendemonium, VintageInks, and a few other pen and ink sites sell empty bottles of Skrip as people love the wells.

Heck, I'll buy it off you if you'd like (PM me ;) ).
 

Jay

Practically Family
Messages
920
Location
New Jersey
What about...

Stamps you actually had to lick to stick them on an envelope. Remember those? Now they're like little stickers. I kind of miss that taste...
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
Messages
33,835
Location
Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
Jay said:
Stamps you actually had to lick to stick them on an envelope. Remember those? Now they're like little stickers. I kind of miss that taste...

Buy your stamps from a vending machine -- they still sell the gummed ones from rolls there.

I have a bunch of old 1/2 cent stamps in my desk drawer -- they date back to when it was my grandfather's desk, and I've never actually cleaned the drawer out -- and I'm sorely tempted to see if the gum tasted the same then...
 

Forum statistics

Threads
109,667
Messages
3,086,222
Members
54,480
Latest member
PISoftware
Top