Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[Inkstainedwretch]

I just stopped by my local post office and it occurred to me that they no longer feature the FBI wanted posters that I always found so fascinating as a boy. I don't think I've seen them since the '80s. I loved to flip through them and see what people were wanted for. I was usually disappointed that most were for boring things like mail fraud and passing bad checks. Armed robbery and homicide seemed much cooler.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Like so much else, they've gone on line.

That first guy there on the Ten Most Wanted is a real piece of work. The poster sounds even more exciting when you read in the voice of the announcer from "Gang Busters." "Brown enjoys being the center of attention and has been known to frequent nightclubs where he enjoys showing off his high-priced vehicles, boats, and other toys."

I'd enjoy visiting a night club where they'd let you bring in a boat.

 

[ChiTownScion]

I just stopped by my local post office and it occurred to me that they no longer feature the FBI wanted posters that I always found so fascinating as a boy. I don't think I've seen them since the '80s. I loved to flip through them and see what people were wanted for. I was usually disappointed that most were for boring things like mail fraud and passing bad checks. Armed robbery and homicide seemed much cooler.

Federal offenses today usually aren't all that high glam, unless it's terrorism or such. There has to be a violation of a Federal statute, and what most people think of as crimes are usually state criminal offenses. (Remember that the best the Feds could nab Al Capone on was tax evasion. ) And if the Feds are going to nab a mobster today under a RICO charge, they usually have had him staked out for years and can arrest him at will: a post office wanted poster display wouldn't really make much sense.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

Coin operated scales. They used to be everywhere and some would tell your fortune as well. They were in every drugstore, five-and-dime, penny arcade (another vanished thing) and sometimes just out on the sidewalk. Haven't seen one in ages.

 

[2jakes]

Coin operated scales. They used to be everywhere and some would tell your fortune as well. They were in every drugstore, five-and-dime, penny arcade (another vanished thing) and sometimes just out on the sidewalk. Haven't seen one in ages.

I forgot about those things.
But now I remember the penny gum ball machines, soda water vending machines & favorite was
a “press"coin-machine that would re-shape a penny .

I also recall putting pennies on the railroad tracks to flatten them out.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

They still have the penny press machines at places where tourists congregate.

 

[vitanola]

Miss Maine, are you awaiting a delivery?

 

[Stearmen]

View attachment 54747 Miss Maine, are you awaiting a delivery?

Actually, we still have door to door meat solicitors. It's mostly elk and deer, out of a freezer on the back of a pickup truck.

 

[Stearmen]

Disposable cameras.

 

[2jakes]

Looks like the boys are a little bit far from home!

 

[2jakes]

Things that have disappeared...

The “Fedora Olympics”.....

Bronze if you can name the material.
Silver if you know two.
Gold if you know all three and what they were used for.

 

[vitanola]

Two eye-cups, a citrus reamer, and a candy container. All made of lime glass. I still use a reamer much like that (prehaps twenty years older) to make orange juice or lemonade. I have an eye-cup in the medicine cabinet. I am too old for the candy container (those little beads of sugar make my fillings ache).

 

[2jakes]

^^^^^
Why am I not surprised!


Congratulations!

 

[vitanola]

Is it "vintage" if it is still in daily use?

 

[2jakes]

Is it "vintage" if it is still in daily use?

1900s Iver Johnson bicycle.
1920s "Big Red" Parker fountain
Pens
1930s Ford tools for my '39
panel truck.

Not sure if these are "vintage" but I do use them daily.

 

[LizzieMaine]

View attachment 54747 Miss Maine, are you awaiting a delivery?

Ten pounds of brisket, please. We're having a pastrami party next week.

Wharf Street is now the home of a boutique chocolate factory. I'd rather have the brisket.

 

[52Styleline]

Ceramic, metal or glass cigarette dishes (also called cigarette boxes) with lids that sat on coffee tables. My aunt and uncle, who never smoked, always had a white ceramic container on their coffee table and kept it full of cigarettes for guests who smoked. In the fifties, I remember them being ubiquitous in middle class homes.

 

[vitanola]

1900s Iver Johnson bicycle.
1920s "Big Red" Parker fountain
Pens
1930s Ford tools for my '39
panel truck.

Not sure if these are "vintage" but I do use them daily.

Well, we are much of the same taste, I think, though I use a cheap Waterman or Schaeffer pen. My bike is a late pre-War (WWI) Elgin "motor bike", fitted with wooden rims and single tube. the Flivver, a '27 Coupe, is laid up until I have time to rebuild the engine (broken crank on a tour - I was in a hurry and did not align my transmission bearing properly).I used old tools in my shop, the radio in the living room just now is a Grebe Synchrophase, and, well why go on. I do use reproduction light bulbs, for old ones are too dear, and I have been known to use reproduction wallpaper, for the stocks of original stuff have just about vanished.

 

[2jakes]

Well, we are much of the same taste, I think, though I use a cheap Waterman or Schaeffer pen. My bike is a late pre-War (WWI) Elgin "motor bike", fitted with wooden rims and single tube. the Flivver, a '27 Coupe, is laid up until I have time to rebuild the engine (broken crank on a tour - I was in a hurry and did not align my transmission bearing properly).I used old tools in my shop, the radio in the living room just now is a Grebe Synchrophase, and, well why go on. I do use reproduction light bulbs, for old ones are too dear, and I have been known to use reproduction wallpaper, for the stocks of original stuff have just about vanished.

Indeed!
For the better part of my high school years, these were my writing pens.

I preferred the clear plastic pen with chrome cap. Came with #304 nib &
ink cartridges of blue or black. Green & red ink was also available.
I still have the Sheaffer clear plastic pen.

One time, instead of the cartridge, I used a medicine eye dropper &
filled the bottom part of the clear plastic pen with ink.
(Ink stains on a white shirt is next to impossible to remove.)

It was the Big Red “Rollerball Pen" of the 70's (a throwback in some respects,
to the fountain pens of the 20's) that “jump-started” my quest for fountain
pens & ink bottles from that era.
It was years later with luck I found several from a friend at
very good prices.

A Parker Duofold ad from back cover of my National Geographic collection.

 

[Fading Fast]

My daily desk, watch, radio and fan - truly in regular use every day:

1913 Wagemaker desk - which I'm sitting at now as I type


1920s Swiss Army Officer's Trench Watch - ticking away on my wrist as I type


Late '40s Fada radio (late '40s so that it gets FM which has the only classical music station left in NYC) - playing softly as I type


1918 Emerson Fan (working hard to keep the room cool as I type)


And the 1928 Building's Mailbox that we use daily: