Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[Zombie_61]

...many home supplies and machinery are designed not to be reparable anymore, the cheaper the less in my experience. While you still get spare parts for a 20 years old Miele washing machine you won’t get any for a cheap Candy or whatsoever after the date of purchase. Your two years old dishwasher doesn’t do it anymore? Trash it and buy a new one, that’s free, deregulated market economy…

And, at least here in the U.S., we've been conditioned to think this way. "Fix it? Fix what? We can't get parts for these anymore." Planned obsolescence.

 

[belfastboy]

I used do all these things because I can. Self-taught, with then help from fellow construction folks along the way and now the internet, I'll tackle most jobs. That said, my wife won't let me on the roof anymore. A fall last year from a ladder and poor balance keep me from doing a lot of what I used to do. I'll hit 77 this year, and I have resolved myself to smaller, safer enterprises. I have also learned (finally) to ask for help, and let professionals carry the load.

Two years ago we renovated our kitchen. Stripped it back to the studs. I purchased premade cabinets and was planning to install them myself. My wife asked...."Do you know how to do that?". I said no but I can learn. She, bless her heart and head, convinced me that the $1000 it cost to pay a tradesman to do it was money well spent. Sometimes, it just makes sense to hire a guy who does it as a profession. It was very cool to watch the guy work....poetry in motion. My ego does miss the thrill of having done it and I do regret missing out on the experience. But on the bright side my wife got the kitchen of her dreams and she does give me some of the credit. I am pretty good at tearing things down!!

 

[Turnip]

… Planned obsolescence.

… and the exact opposite of sustainability…

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Planned obsolescence" as a concept has actually been around long enough now to be considered vintage -- while automakers were experimenting with the concept in the 1920s, it was first fully developed and articulated as a legitimate theory of production after WWII. It was fully established in the American automotive and hard-goods industries by the mid-1950s. Vance Packard's landmark study "The Waste Makers," published in 1960, is a must-read for those wondering just how this idea was foisted upon and sold to the ever-gullible Chumpus Americanus.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^
Wasn’t it the industrial designer Harley Earl who coined the slightly more euphemistic phrase “dynamic obsolescence”?

Earl was the head of styling for General Motors. The “obsolescence“ he had in mind was more concerned with the aesthetics of the product than its function(s) and durability.

When I was a youngster I could tell the model year of almost every car on the road, because 1.), I cared about such things back then, and 2.), the body styles changed every year. It was costly for the car companies to constantly restyle and retool to stay “up to date,” but the industry banked on a large portion of the car-buying public wanting the latest looks. A car three or four years old had become, in the eyes of many, an “old” car.

 

[belfastboy]

"Planned obsolescence" as a concept has actually been around long enough now to be considered vintage -- while automakers were experimenting with the concept in the 1920s, it was first fully developed and articulated as a legitimate theory of production after WWII. It was fully established in the American automotive and hard-goods industries by the mid-1950s. Vance Packard's landmark study "The Waste Makers," published in 1960, is a must-read for those wondering just how this idea was foisted upon and sold to the ever-gullible Chumpus Americanus.

And some things are actually better. Say what you will about modern vehicles they are better in that they run longer and better with 1/10th of the maintenance required with up to 4 times the gas mileage of my first cars of the 1950's.

If one shops around there are durable goods to be purchased. I have shoes approaching 45 years old. Most of the items we purchased when first married 47 years ago we still have......kitchen knives, pot and pans, Cast iron fry pans (I have a prenupt that only includes my 3 CI fry pans that predate my marriage.)

We have our original dishes/cutlery/stemware, I have all my mechanics tools, and carpentry tools from 50+ years ago. Same bedroom furniture that we bought used 47 years ago.
We have worn out numerous carpets, vehicles last us about 10-12 years/250000kms and yes have worn out 3 stoves and a couple of fridges. Our hot water tanks seem to last us 10 years or so before they pack it in. We are on our second washing machine and dryer (maybe because we still use a clothes line to dry) but we got 28 years from the first pairing.
My mothers fridge and stove lasted about 40 years but I can tell you my newish induction range and modern fridge outperforms her vintage items by a wide wide margin.

I do have a complaint that my 10 year old cel phone had to be replaced as it is obsolete...only 3G and not compatible with the new 5G.....but the new phone is a pretty amazing device. And I do have the choice to not engage in ownership of one should I choose.
I am quite content with the choices we have as consumers these days and if one is not willing to sign on as a Chump the choice is theirs to make. Choice is a good thing.

 

[Turnip]

„Phoebus Cartel“ , founded 1925 in Geneva and involving European as well as US companies, is certainly a key word in respect to planned obsolescence.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^^
Regarding old cars v. new …

Much as I love old cars, new ones are superior in almost every regard, most of which our British Columbian friend already enumerated.

The features of new household appliances might make them more convenient (and really, ain’t that the entire point of our “modern conveniences”?), but I seriously doubt they’ll prove nearly as durable as the ones made 50 and more years ago. And it seems that the newer the appliance, the likelier it will fail.

My over-the-range microwave died a week or two after the warranty expired. That was a one-year warranty. One year. One effing year.

But, you know, I ain’t about to live without a microwave. So I bought a cheap countertop version in a “retro” style. I wouldn’t bet on it lasting more than five years.

I’ll be putting in a 1963-vintage Frigidaire Flair range and oven I recently acquired (free) where the existing stove and that over-the-range microwave had been. (On the Flair the oven is above the cooktop and the lower section is a storage cabinet.) There is nothing on that 60-year-old range that can’t be fixed by even the most minimally skilled homeowner using the most rudimentary hand tools. (And a multimeter.) There are online communities — cults, almost — devoted to the things. The more devout post videos on how to fix the components likeliest to need fixing, and at least a hundred others that likely never will.

 

[tonyb]

When I was five I knocked a telephone chair into the front of the television set and put a big crack in the safety glass in front of the picture tube. That's a sentence that means absolutely nothing to anyone under forty.

Another thing that might make little sense to youngsters these days was the observation made yesterday by David Grisman, the mandolin player of some renown, who said, on the occasion of his 78th birthday, that he was born in 45 and was 33 in 78.

 

[tonyb]

H

Here in both Canada and the US, smaller towns that are still largely homogenous and still have an active church(s) the local cafe is still a type of community centre. You want to know something about the community or catch up on gossip talk to the cafe's server.

When I was back in Wisconsin a few months back (where I haven’t resided since 1968), I was pleased to see that the tavern a block or so up from my grandfather’s house (where I lived myself during one of my folks’s numerous separations) was still in operation, mostly unchanged except for the name. And the country crossroads tavern, next to the church behind which my biological father is buried, is mostly unchanged from what it was way back when as well. Both establishments are community gathering places — unpretentious, inexpensive, more stable than most marriages these days.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I have a microwave that's at least twenty-five years old, but it's not "smart" and it's not "compact" and about all I ever use it for is heating up a plate of leftovers or a hot ham and cheese sandwich now and then.

My real cooking, though, is done on a 70-year old Hotpoint apartment size range with no extra features or gimmicks whatsoever. I replace the heating element in the oven every fifteen years or so, and I've had to replace one of the burners that shorted out with a spectacular electrical arc that blew a hole in an iron frying pan, and a couple of years ago, the oven thermostat. Up until ten years ago I could get the parts for these kinds of repair jobs over the counter from the service department from our local Hotpoint dealer, but now I must resort to eBay. But I don't think I've spent on repairs, over the 35 years I've owned this range, even what I spent to buy it in the first place.

 

[Zombie_61]

Another thing that might make little sense to youngsters these days was the observation made yesterday by David Grisman, the mandolin player of some renown, who said, on the occasion of his 78th birthday, that he was born in 45 and was 33 in 78.

I think I'm being a little generous by saying that most people born after 1990 would not understand the significance of Mr. Grisman's statement.

I have a microwave that's at least twenty-five years old, but it's not "smart" and it's not "compact" and about all I ever use it for is heating up a plate of leftovers or a hot ham and cheese sandwich now and then.

That's phenomenal. My late wife and I didn't own even one microwave that worked longer than 10 years.

 

[tonyb]

„Phoebus Cartel“ , founded 1925 in Geneva and involving European as well as US companies, is certainly a key word in respect to planned obsolescence.

Many years ago I had a friend out in Seattle with a connection in the city transportation department who gave us used light bulbs from the traffic signals, which were changed out on a schedule, well ahead of their expected lifespan. They were Edison base bulbs, and clear glass, and plainly more durable than what was commonly available to the general public.

But that was then. Traffic signals these days are LEDs, which are brighter, more energy efficient, and longer lasting.

 

[LizzieMaine]

We used those traffic signal bulbs in our theatre ceiling lights for many years, since the only way to get up and change them is to rent a scissor hoist, build a platform in the aisle to level it, and rise twenty feet in the air to dismantle the light globes and put in the new bulbs. I just did this job for the first time in ten years, and this time was required to install LED bulbs which require us also to spend many thousands of dollars to update the dimmer stacks to handle LED bulbs. But we won't be able to get the incandescent bulbs that work with our old dimmers after August 1st of this year, so the change had to be made. Not sure when the savings will kick in, compared to the cost of having to rebuild the dimmers (and that cost is nothing compared to the cost of rebuilding the *stage* dimmers, which is phase two of the project), but I am promised they will, eventually, be ample/

 

[tonyb]

I recently had a cheap (relatively) Edison base LED fail after seven years or so of nonstop use. It was in a shed, in a cheap IKEA plastic shop reflector, hanging near a window, so as to softly illuminate a path and to keep me from tripping over the stuff I keep in that shed. The LED was flickering, which I took as a sign that its end was near.

I may have replaced another LED at some point over the eight-plus years we’ve been in this house, but I couldn’t say when that might have been.

 

[tonyb]

We used those traffic signal bulbs in our theatre ceiling lights for many years, since the only way to get up and change them is to rent a scissor hoist, build a platform in the aisle to level it, and rise twenty feet in the air to dismantle the light globes and put in the new bulbs. I just did this job for the first time in ten years, and this time was required to install LED bulbs which require us also to spend many thousands of dollars to update the dimmer stacks to handle LED bulbs. But we won't be able to get the incandescent bulbs that work with our old dimmers after August 1st of this year, so the change had to be made. Not sure when the savings will kick in, compared to the cost of having to rebuild the dimmers (and that cost is nothing compared to the cost of rebuilding the *stage* dimmers, which is phase two of the project), but I am promised they will, eventually, be ample/

We took steps toward installing rooftop photovoltaic panels a few months back, but backed out when the price we were quoted wasn’t the price on the proposed contract. Turns out they had, um, “overlooked” a couple things when they made the initial bid.

It would take at least a decade for the cost of the system to be offset by the savings on the electric bill. And that’s okay. Net metering (selling the juice back to the utility at the same rate it charges) has many paying essentially nothing for electricity.

We very well may go solar, but with a different company. But I harbor no illusions that we will ever have free electricity. The system will eventually wear out and need to be replaced. And then we start over.

 

[belfastboy]

I am a baseball fan. The sacrifice bunt specifically and the art of bunting in general has disappeared from the game.

But during the World Baseball Classic, Team Japan gave me great joy in demonstrating they still got it and still use it. Shohei Ohtani, arguably the best player on the planet, a slugger of the highest order laid down a perfect bunt in the semi final. The bunt was what the situation called forth but no manager would dare give a Major League star the bunt sign. But here we had Ohtani laying one down. Brought a tear to my eye...nostalgia.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
I’m reserving judgement on the rules changes taking effect this season until we have some history with them. But I don’t expect to ever favor the pitch clock. Part of the game’s appeal is the absence of a clock.

Still, though, I understand the thinking behind the changes. Baseball hasn’t been the “national pastime” for at least 50 years, and the fan base is aging. People, especially younger people, tend to find it slow-paced and less exciting than football and basketball.

 

[VansonRider]

On the first page of the thread someone mentioned all the specialty stores had been replaced by Malls, and while they’re are some malls left they’re certainly becoming abandoned as anchor stores have been closing down. Sears, Bed Bath and Beyond, and Party City look like they’re shuttering this year. Made me wonder what things have disappeared since the start of the thread in 2008

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^
It’ll be interesting to see what becomes of these suburban malls. I’m guessing that some will become warehouses/fulfillment centers, what with all that acreage and their locations near major highways and population centers.

The mall nearest me, maybe three miles away, is still doing okay, by the looks of it. I hit the Penney’s there once a year or so, to buy a couple-three shirts and maybe another pair of jeans or two. I don’t “go shopping”; I go buying. I go during slack hours and get in and out as quickly as I can.

News reports are that mall management is discouraging loitering by youngsters there, seeing how their fisticuffs and occasional gun play discourages people who might actually be spending money there. It’s kinda amusing to hear how the concerns are phrased, though.