Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[LizzieMaine]

I hate that license plates have become a marketing device for routined self-expression instead of a simple means of identifying the owner of a vehicle. I have resented all my life that I have to display a plate labled "Vacationland," when I can barely afford to live here, but it really irritates me that there are no so many "affinity" plate variations going around that I have to look twice to figure out if the guy who just cut me off is a local or a Masshole.

 

[tonyb]

The lovely missus insists the van wears an “Adopt a Shelter Pet” affinity plate. It costs an extra 30 or 40 bucks or something like that on renewing the registration every year, with the additional proceeds allegedly going to animal shelters, etc.

I wouldn’t do that if it were left up to me, but it isn’t and I don’t find the message objectionable, which is more than I can say for many of the other affinity plates available.

 

[1961MJS]

Hi, I can't imagine how a cop works out where the license is FROM. Oklahoma has more than 5 tribes with separate licenses, 5 armed services, and several others. Kansas had plates for the different colleges also.

Later

 

[tonyb]

Injector razors.

I was reminded of this while watching video clips of TV ads from the 1960s. I have dim memories of using such a setup in my early shaving days, but I have no recollection of seeing one in at least 50 years.

A little reading up on the matter indicates that Col. Jacob Schick was inspired by the action of WWI firearms. The “magazine repeating razor” appeared in 1925.

It turns out that the company carrying Schick’s name still makes injector razors and blades. They’re easily found online but it’s doubtful you’d find ’em at your local supermarket.

 

[LizzieMaine]

A radio comedian sponsored by the Schick company was summarily fired after giving their advertising slogan as "Push, Pull -- Nick, Nick."

 

[Trenchfriend]

CD-sections in electronic chain stores are actually disappearing step by step.

 

[tonyb]

CD-sections in electronic chain stores are actually disappearing step by step.

I’ve found CD’s to be overall the best of the “hard” media. I have a console stereo with a phonograph and plugged into it and another tuner/amp a cassette deck and a 5-disc CD changer. I’m no audiophile, but I appreciate the cleanliness of CD’s and that playing them does nothing to degrade them. Can’t say that for tapes and LP’s.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I've found that the hardware to play them on is more perishable than the CDs. But that's OK, I've got 78s, and you can play them with a thumbtack and a paper cup.

 

[tonyb]

I can’t remember what I paid for my CD changer, seeing how I bought it at a thrift store several years ago for an inconsequential sum. Must’ve been something like 20 bucks.

 

[Trenchfriend]

There seems to be nothing really new about the MV Astoria (MS Stockholm, 1948). Still laid up in Rotterdam and unclear, if she's really sold for scrapping.

The World's Oldest Cruise Ship Will Be Scrapped

The world's oldest cruise ship, Astoria, has been sold for scrap metal and will soon sail on her final voyage.

www.cruisehive.com

Is anyone knowing more??

 

[LostInTyme]

I haven't looked through all 361 pages, so this may have been proffered prior to this: BandAids in a metal box. You could put one on, and it would last a week before falling off. Ahh, those were the days.

 

[BobHufford]

I haven't looked through all 361 pages, so this may have been proffered prior to this: BandAids in a metal box. You could put one on, and it would last a week before falling off. Ahh, those were the days.

View attachment 679860

We used to cover these with contact paper and gift them to my Grandpa to carry his hand stuffed cigarettes.

 

[tonyb]

I haven't looked through all 361 pages, so this may have been proffered prior to this: BandAids in a metal box. You could put one on, and it would last a week before falling off. Ahh, those were the days.

View attachment 679860

See that little spyglass looking thing on the upper right? That’s how you reach the search function. Once there it’s essentially self-explanatory.

As it turns out, the metal Band-Aid boxes were mentioned before, but that was in 2011, so a refresh would seem in order.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

Not gone, but I think it's really heading that way: terrestrial radio.

I LOVE listening to the radio and in my area, we used to have some fair options. Back in the 1990s-2000s, (being a Country Music fan) there was a station that played Top 40 Country, another that played Top 40 Country with older songs interspersed, and a "Classic Country" station which would play your Hank Williams, George Jones, Merle Haggard, etc.

We had an AM station that played only Polkas and an FM Top 40 Country Station that played a Polka Program from 5 to 6pm every day along with Paul Harvey. Mr. Harvey is gone, the Country Station has re-formatted but the Polka Program is still on daily and I listen to it daily.

On Sunday Mornings, there was one station that played all "Classic Country" from 6am to Noon and another on the same schedule that played Polkas.

There were, of course, top 40 pop stations.

And both AM and FM Oldies Stations that actually played OLDIES! I understand time marches on, but our local FM station is no longer "Oldies" but is "Classic Hits." Growing up, my dad would listen to it occasionally and it was 50's, 60's, and some EARLY 70's music on there. Now it's 80's and 90's, and the prior songs don't have a home.

Most recently, we were down to two AM stations, one that played Classic Country, and one that played a wider variety of oldies, so even though I didn't care for the 80's and 90's stuff on there, there was at least some 40's-70's stuff to enjoy. It was a good compromise at work. Both of those stations have disappeared in the last 2 years.

I'm now forced into SiriusXM, so I can actually listen to SOMETHING tolerable while driving. It's just a shame, as a radio listener, and collector. I don't even turn my radios on anymore. It's just a crying shame.

 

[tonyb]

We used to cover these with contact paper and gift them to my Grandpa to carry his hand stuffed cigarettes.

View attachment 679907

My grandfather also economized by using one of those assemble-‘em-yourself cigarette kits.

I found that odd, seeing he was a world class cigarette roller going back to the 1920s. He could roll a cigarette one-handed. He placed the paper in the corner of his mouth and sprinkled the tobacco from its pouch and used his tongue to roll it together. It was a thing to behold. He boasted that he could roll Bull Durham while riding on the top of a boxcar. (Bull Durham is more challenging to roll than Bugler or Top. The latter two are shredded tobacco, whereas Bull Durham is more like dust.)

Back in my nicotine fiend days I often kept Bugler or Top in the house, just to make sure I could get my fix should I exhaust my supply of readymades.

I gave up the habit in September of 2006, when the possibility that it might be killing me became the likelihood. I haven’t taken so much as a drag off a smoke since. I admit to missing the drug effect, though. It went well with my work and social life at the time.

My grandfather died at age 76. That used to seem an advanced age.

 

[tonyb]

Not gone, but I think it's really heading that way: terrestrial radio.

I LOVE listening to the radio and in my area, we used to have some fair options. Back in the 1990s-2000s, (being a Country Music fan) there was a station that played Top 40 Country, another that played Top 40 Country with older songs interspersed, and a "Classic Country" station which would play your Hank Williams, George Jones, Merle Haggard, etc.

We had an AM station that played only Polkas and an FM Top 40 Country Station that played a Polka Program from 5 to 6pm every day along with Paul Harvey. Mr. Harvey is gone, the Country Station has re-formatted but the Polka Program is still on daily and I listen to it daily.

On Sunday Mornings, there was one station that played all "Classic Country" from 6am to Noon and another on the same schedule that played Polkas.

There were, of course, top 40 pop stations.

And both AM and FM Oldies Stations that actually played OLDIES! I understand time marches on, but our local FM station is no longer "Oldies" but is "Classic Hits." Growing up, my dad would listen to it occasionally and it was 50's, 60's, and some EARLY 70's music on there. Now it's 80's and 90's, and the prior songs don't have a home.

Most recently, we were down to two AM stations, one that played Classic Country, and one that played a wider variety of oldies, so even though I didn't care for the 80's and 90's stuff on there, there was at least some 40's-70's stuff to enjoy. It was a good compromise at work. Both of those stations have disappeared in the last 2 years.

I'm now forced into SiriusXM, so I can actually listen to SOMETHING tolerable while driving. It's just a shame, as a radio listener, and collector. I don't even turn my radios on anymore. It's just a crying shame.

I used to have the radio on during most waking hours. Not anymore. We have a SiriusXM-enabled receiver in the car (both cars, come to think of it, seeing how the “new” van, our backup rig, has a recent aftermarket receiver), but we let the subscription lapse.

Local radio can and did serve a vital service. But what of practical utility it served has been largely supplanted by newer technologies. I don’t need the traffic report when my phone can tell me that on my schedule. Same with the weather forecast. What’s missing, though, in local radio as well as other local media, is local news. Fewer eyes are on the local pols and others in positions of influence we really ought to keep our eyes on.

Both the lovely missus and I listen to podcasts these days. Bluetooth-enabled receivers in the cars allow us to listen to them over the car speakers. (The hands-free cell phone function also makes being in the car for long stretches much nicer, too.)

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

Speaking of radio, I grew up in the Pittsburgh area. When I was young there will still plenty of grandpas and grandmas from "the old country". There were AM radio stations (widespread FM was still some years off) and on Sundays there were stations that broadcast in eastern European languages.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^
My biological father, who died when I was four months old, came from a family of dairymen of German descent who had been here in God’s Country since shortly after the Civil War, as best I can figure. His parents generation was still more comfortable speaking German than English, and the people of his generation still spoke English with a decided accent. (Think Lawrence Welk, who was born and raised in North Dakota, but a person would be forgiven for thinking, judging from his accent, that he was an immigrant.)