Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[ButteMT61]

There is nothing at all hypocritical in advising against hitchhiking and riding in the backs of pickup trucks and drinking alcohol to the point of undeniable intoxication and any number of other potentially dangerous things I did myself and really don't regret. (There's another list of things I do indeed regret, but that's a whole 'nother matter.)

Well, if you're a parent, you need to be a hypocrite to an extent to raise your kids to think critically and sensibly.
Sure, it's sometimes painful as all those things brought me joy, but when my son wanted to get a motorcycle, I did everything in my power to get him into a car. For all the same reasons I've all but given it up here in the city, I didn't want him on one.
Kills me - I've been riding over 40 years. But sometimes that pleasure spot needs to be squashed.

 

[Stearmen]

There is nothing at all hypocritical in advising against hitchhiking and riding in the backs of pickup trucks and drinking alcohol to the point of undeniable intoxication and any number of other potentially dangerous things I did myself and really don't regret. (There's another list of things I do indeed regret, but that's a whole 'nother matter.)

I was told that, my Grandfather and a couple of my Great-uncles were in the back of a Ford Model TT when some one said, where's Ollie? Apparently, he had bounced out of the truck right on his head, the next morning he didn't even remember a thing and was perfectly OK!

 

[Trenchfriend]

Know that?:

Eggs with mustard-sauce (and potatoes)
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=eier+mit+senfsauce&FORM=HDRSC2

Real german classic basic. Not really dead, still there.

 

[Jim Green]

1.) Students taking notes on paper in notebooks, rather than bringing the laptop to school, updating one's Facebook page, checking imdb and occasionally typing a few notes.

2.) Making one's own flash cards for verb conjugations and whatnot.

3.) Studying in the library WITH A MAP (and following e.g. Hannibal's route across Spain, past Saguntum, past the Ebro river, through Gaul, through the Alps and into Italy).

I work as an Investigator for Texas DFPS and I am one of the few to write by hand while interviewing people. I still have to type into my laptop later but I prefer the intimacy of writing my notes by hand.

Sent from my HTC Desire 626s using Tapatalk

 

[Stormy]

Well, I stopped going to department stores long ago. Thrift, resale, and smaller "shoppes" offer far better selections, quality, and pleasure for me.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Well, I stopped going to department stores long ago. Thrift, resale, and smaller "shoppes" offer far better selections, quality, and pleasure for me.

All goes mainstream.
But, yes, because of that, the people are brassed off and there is an upcoming regional alternative-sector. In Germany, too. Further reason are the fuel-prices on less income.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

Dentist offices no longer have spit basins. I miss those things. I have to taste all that stuff they use while the assistant pokes around in my mouth with a plastic suction tube. What's wrong with a good rinse-and-spit?

 

[JimWagner]

Dentist offices no longer have spit basins. I miss those things. I have to taste all that stuff they use while the assistant pokes around in my mouth with a plastic suction tube. What's wrong with a good rinse-and-spit?

My dentist told me, when I asked that question, that it was a safety measure that came about with the spread of AIDS. Spitting blood - not a good practice when dealing with blood born contageous diseases.

 

[St. Louis]

The real Pond's Cold Cream has disappeared. The new stuff (for some reason) was reformulated a few years ago to include a lot of unhealthy glop. Still smells the same, though. The real Pears' soap disappeared, too; that was completely adulterated some years ago, to popular protest (after having been manufactured to the same standards for nearly 200 years) and is now slightly better. Still nowhere near the real thing. Max Factor PanCake makeup is gone now too; you can occasionally find it on ebay, but the company has discontinued this wonderful, wonderful product -- the only foundation that really matches my skin.

On a brighter note, Listerine still seems to be made to the same formula since 1895; Mum deodorant has only had one (unhealthy) ingredient added since the 1940s; Oil of Olay was brought back after it had been discontinued & there was a popular outcry; and RyKrisp crackers are about to be brought back as well. I can't wait.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

Hotel rooms almost never have phone books any more. I find this very frustrating.

 

[tonyb]

Hotel rooms almost never have phone books any more. I find this very frustrating.

Can't say that I've noticed. It's not that I travel much, but in a typical yeat I spend perhaps half a dozen nights per year in a hotel or motel room.

Channeling H.L. Mencken, I've been known to autograph an occasion Gideon's Bible (Best Regards, The Author), but I can't recall when I last went in search of a phone book.

 

[Stearmen]

Hotel rooms almost never have phone books any more. I find this very frustrating.

We used to bring our motorcycles in the motel room for safe keeping, the phone book was great for catching oil!

 

[GHT]

Green Stamps: Own up, who collected them? I've got a vested interest in this:
S&H Green Stamps were trading stamps popular in the United States from the 1930s until the late 1980s. They were distributed as part of a rewards program operated by the Sperry & Hutchinson company (S&H), founded in 1896 by Thomas Sperry and Shelley Byron Hutchinson. During the 1960s, the company promoted its rewards catalogue as being the largest publication in the United States and boasted that it issued three times as many stamps as the U.S. Postal Service. Customers would receive stamps at the checkout counter of supermarkets, department stores, and gasoline stations among other retailers, which could be redeemed for products in the catalogue.

And my interest?
Green Shield Stamps was a British sales promotion scheme that rewarded shoppers with stamps that could be used to buy gifts from a catalogue or from any affiliated retailer. The scheme was introduced in 1958 by Richard Tompkins, who had noticed the success of the long-established Sperry & Hutchinson Green Stamps in America.
For a few years, the scheme was so widely-adopted that it was referenced in pop songs. But it suffered when a major retail-chain ceased to use it, as part of a price-cutting policy that became standard nationwide. To retain business, Green Shield allowed customers to buy gifts from the catalogue with a mix of stamps and cash, but soon the catalogue became cash-only, and the operation was re-branded as Argos. Stamps were withdrawn altogether in 1991.

Green Shield's demise was not due to Tesco pulling the plug, it was caused by the 6 day and other Middle East conflicts that caused the price of fuel to quadruple at the pump. Fuel was the biggest money spinner for Green Shield, when motorists had to queue for their fuel, trading stamps suddenly became inconsequential.

Green Shield however, were well placed and well financed to morph into what we know today as Argos. I know all this first hand, I was the distribution centre's general manager. The job was well paid, demanding and thoroughly enjoyable, but if only I had a few of Richard Tompkins shares. He started Green Shield with just £400. He sold it as Argos to British & American Tobacco for £38Million.

Today of course we have so called loyalty cards, but their rewards are not like a common currency that trading stamps were. Also, the trading stamp companies didn't amass a portfolio of information about you that they could use to annoy you with sales and other promotions. Or, sell on to others.
(I bet those trading stamp companies could kick themselves for missing out on such a lucrative idea.)

So come on, did you collect trading stamps? Were the gifts in the catalogue useful or just cheap and tacky?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Trading stamps were huge here -- they reached their peak in popularity in the sixties, and *everyone* gave them out. There were many brands of stamps besides S&H -- our gas station gave out Top Value, another place in town gave out Plaid Stamps, and there were also Blue Chip stamps, Gold Bond stamps, etc. etc. etc.

While gas stations were big outlets for stamps, the most impressive places to use them were grocery stores. There was a large dispenser mounted beside the cash register, and after the clerk finished ringing up your sale, she'd use what appeared to be a telephone dial on the front of the dispenser to dial in the amount of your sale, and the dispenser would spit out the appropriate amount of stamps -- a large grocery order would get you a big pane of stamps, whereas a small order would get just a small strip. The stamps came in denominations -- the small ones were worth one point, and there were larger ones worth five, ten, and twenty-five points. You'd store the loose stamps in a coffee can or some such until you got around to counting them out and pasting them in the redemption booklets.

The merchandise was shown in a slickly-printed thick catalog, about the size of the Sears Christmas book. Each item was priced by the number of full books of stamps required to earn it -- a little table radio might cost five books of stamps, a bicycle might cost thirty books of stamps, a color TV might cost three hundred books of stamps, and so on. This was the same quality of name brand merchandise you'd find in the Sears catalog, or at any department store. To redeem your books you had to go to a "Redemption Center," which was usually in an out-of-the-way, low-rent part of town, either in a small warehouse or in a repurposed store in a second-rate shopping center, and you'd count out your books and fill in a form for what you wanted. They'd take your books and order your goods, and about a week later you'd have to go back to the Redemption Center to pick it up.

Pretty much my entire childhood home was furnished with Green Stamps and Top Value stamps, and my mother still has her coffee can with loose stamps in it, hoping that one day they'll be worth something again.

American trading stamps were not supposed to be redeemable for cash, although they had a line of fine print at the bottom of each stamp -- "Cash Value One Mill." A mill is the smallest theoretical unit of currency in the US system, and it takes a thousand mills to make a dollar, or ten mills to make a cent. My childhood scheme to make big money swiping stamps and redeeming them for cash ran aground upon the rocks of that realization.

 

[GHT]

Pretty much my entire childhood home was furnished with Green Stamps and Top Value stamps, and my mother still has her coffee can with loose stamps in it, hoping that one day they'll be worth something again.

She may be onto something there, Lizzie. There's a big "weekender" in the UK that coincides with our late summer holidays, called Twinwood. A couple of years back I noticed one of the vintage stall holders selling complete books of Green Shield Stamps for four pounds a piece.

 

[Fading Fast]

^^^ Similar to Lizzie above, Green Stamps were a big part of my growing up. Both my mom and grandmother collected them. I remember the dispenser and the books very well. It's funny, I remember all that - and the slightly sketchy place you'd go to get the stuff - but I don't remember how, when, why the stamps went away. But looking back, sometime in the '70s must of been when they stopped as by the time I went to college '81, I don't think we were doing that anymore.

 

[tonyb]

I clearly recall the S&H stamps, and the signs in merchants' windows advertising that the stores dispensed them. But I have zero recollection of ever redeeming them. I suspect that my mom passed them along to friends and relatives.

Recently the Safeway stores hereabouts had been distributing stamps redeemable for dishes and knives (I think). The cashiers were pushing 'em hard initially. There were (are?) displays of the loot near the fronts of the stores. I got the stamps, I got the little booklet you're s'posed to stick the stamps in. And then I tossed 'em out. After that rollout, the cashiers asked if I wanted the stamps, but they didn't "push" 'em. Perhaps the program is now expired, but I don't recall any mention of the stamps in recent weeks..

 

[LizzieMaine]

Our local redemption center closed in 1976, which was the same year W. T. Grants went out of business. Between losing the two of them, my mother never recovered.

We dropped the Top Value stamps at the gas station a few years before that, likely at the time of the Arab Oil Embargo. I started working in the station office in 1977, and there were piles of stamps in the desk drawer, but they weren't used for anything -- I imagine Top Value had gone out of business by then.

 

[Dan Allen]

In the fifties and sixties any road trip threw rural farmlands rewarded you with displays of old cars lined up along the back forty fence line. It seems that when the farm car of truck died it was just pushed to the back of the barn and replaced, no trade in. I saw many classics and a couple of truly rare cars out back blanketed by blackberry brambles....they are all gone now.

 

[ButteMT61]

S&H was big for my Mom too - and therefore, me and my brother. Likely got us a lot of things we needed when Dad was in grad-school. It was fun - we'd sit in the living room and put them into the booklets and then look at the catalog. Usually this meant a new electric blanket for winter or something equally useful for the time. Might very well be what got me to be a "shopper" at an early age. I think it was really good for my Mom too - something we could do and she "wasn't spending money", per se.
I know it's all relative, but I truly do miss those years. I just don't think the quality of everyday life is as fulfilling since the 'net took over everything and everyone.