Vintage things that have REAPPEARED in your lifetime?

[EngProf]

One of the bigger (maybe the biggest?) vinyl-record companies is here in Nashville. (Where else?)
A local news item stated that they had doubled their machinery and put on a second shift to keep up with demand.
I used to arrange a tour of their plant for my manufacturing processes class to see records being made, but they got so busy they stopped offering tours.

 

[tonyb]

... The best footswitch I ever saw was the dimmer switch in a Morris Minor 1000 - left-foot operated, beside the clutch. Great idea, once you got used to it.

Hell, I had to get used to the dimmer switch on the turn signal stalk. Some European cars had it there in my early driving years, but the standard over here (where we drive on the correct side of the road) was the foot-operated switch.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Yep, I never had a stalk switch until 1987, and it drove me crazy. The problem with the foot switches, at least in snow country, is that you'd get in the car with snow and salt on your shoes and it'd leak down into the workings of the switch and would corrode it out, eventually leading to a fuse-blowing short circuit.

 

[fashion frank]

My 1931 Ford Model A has that foot button starter but you have to have a key in the ignition for it to start !

 

[3fingers]

Yep, I never had a stalk switch until 1987, and it drove me crazy. The problem with the foot switches, at least in snow country, is that you'd get in the car with snow and salt on your shoes and it'd leak down into the workings of the switch and would corrode it out, eventually leading to a fuse-blowing short circuit.

Now you have a ridiculously expensive multi switch stalk to replace that is a major undertaking to remove when it fails. My son and I took his apart and cleaned the terminals and repacked it with grease. It was cheap enough if you didn't count our time, but I doubt 1 in 1,000 are repaired. I could replace a foot switch in less than 5 minutes. I'm not convinced that is an advancement.

 

[Woodtroll]

Now you have a ridiculously expensive multi switch stalk to replace that is a major undertaking to remove when it fails. My son and I took his apart and cleaned the terminals and repacked it with grease. It was cheap enough if you didn't count our time, but I doubt 1 in 1,000 are repaired. I could replace a foot switch in less than 5 minutes. I'm not convinced that is an advancement.

The stalk multi-function switches are certainly no improvement over the foot switches! Many times I've wondered how hard it would be to bypass the stalk switch and put a foot switch in my Ranger pickup.

 

[Edward]

Yep, I never had a stalk switch until 1987, and it drove me crazy. The problem with the foot switches, at least in snow country, is that you'd get in the car with snow and salt on your shoes and it'd leak down into the workings of the switch and would corrode it out, eventually leading to a fuse-blowing short circuit.

I wonder if that's why the stalk became the standard in the damp UK climate... one of the major problems in Winter, too, for anything vintage where my folks are in Ireland is the amount of salt on the road corroding the undersides.

 

[tonyb]

Laminate (think Formica) kitchen countertops and tabletops in 1950s and ’60s patterns and colors.

Formica reissued its “Skylark” laminate in recent years. That’s the style with the squiggly boomerang-shaped forms. Indeed, it and its knockoffs from other manufacturers (Wilsonart, for one) are more commonly called boomerang Formica, even when it isn’t actually made by Formica.

 

[Zombie_61]

My 1931 Ford Model A has that foot button starter but you have to have a key in the ignition for it to start !

The last time my wife and I visited Chicago the car we rented had a button on the dashboard that was used to start the car, but you still had to have a key to insert into the ignition switch and turn in order to "activate" the car. As such, I thought the starter button was a rather silly idea--my hand is already on the key, so why do I need to remove it and push a button instead of just turning the key a little farther?

Now you have a ridiculously expensive multi switch stalk to replace that is a major undertaking to remove when it fails. My son and I took his apart and cleaned the terminals and repacked it with grease. It was cheap enough if you didn't count our time, but I doubt 1 in 1,000 are repaired. I could replace a foot switch in less than 5 minutes. I'm not convinced that is an advancement.

In my opinion the only real advantage to the multi-function stalk it that it makes it easier to "flash" your hi-beam lights as a signal to other drivers that you're yielding right-of-way to them, or verifying clearance when someone driving a large truck wants/needs to change lanes in front of you.

Other than that, I just wish all of the car manufacturers around the world would somehow standardize the arrangements of the buttons/switches on these stalks. I drive my wife's SUV infrequently, so every time I do I have to re-learn where those buttons and switches are.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The purpose of having the starter button or pedal on the floor in 6 volt cars was to keep the mechanism as simple as possible -- there is no solenoid in a floor starter, just a spring-loaded plunger that kicks down a button mounted directly on the starter itself. No solenoid, one less part to get out of whack, and in 6 volt cars the more opportunities there were for corrosion in the electrical system the poorer the performance. Having a mechanical system for engaging the starter instead of an electrical one avoided one possible point for problems.

The starter button moved to the dash in some of the more upscale makes before the war as the kind of doodad that showed your jealous neighbors how much better your car was than theirs, but it wasn't until after the war that even the Low Priced Three started using the solenoid-starter system and the idea of a combination ignition key/starter keyswitch followed on its heels. These systems were fussier and more complicated to service than the floor starter, which pleased the dealers who could charge extra for repairing them, and their adoption probably helped convince the manufacturers that 12-volt electrical systems were a good idea.

 

[Edward]

The last time my wife and I visited Chicago the car we rented had a button on the dashboard that was used to start the car, but you still had to have a key to insert into the ignition switch and turn in order to "activate" the car. As such, I thought the starter button was a rather silly idea--my hand is already on the key, so why do I need to remove it and push a button instead of just turning the key a little farther?

AFAIK, on an auto the idea of separating these processes into two steps was an attempt to decrease the risk of a low speed prang cause by switching the key on while the stick is in drive. Course, there's still a risk some won't notice... There must be a reason for it in most modern cars now, otherwise I'm sure if it was simply cheaper and easier to have the key do it all, they would.

 

[Absinthe_1900]

I was lucky to be involved with the return of the vintage formula Legendre Herbsaint, as Herbsaint Original.

I supplied a 1940s unopened Herbsaint mini so the Sazerac Co. could compare the flavor profile with the vintage mini bottle.

I'm very happy to have the 1930s Herbsaint back, and the flavor profile is spot on.

Pictures is a recent bottle of the revived Herbsaint Original, and the 40s Herbsaint that Sazerac returned to me.

 

[LizzieMaine]

While you still can't get a box of genuine Uneeda Biscuits at your grocery store (eat sand, Nabisco), if you go to the Hispanic aisle, there's a pretty good chance you'll find the next best thing. Look for Goya Crackers -- they come in little cellophane packets stuffed into a big plastic bag.

These crackers are the closest thing I've ever found to the blessed Uneeda. They're a real old-fashioned unsalted soda cracker, and although they're round-ish in shape, they're thick and dense like a Uneeda. If there's a difference in the taste, it's slight enough to be negligible. They are also quite inexpensive, and you get a lot of crackers for your money. Until I become dictator, expropriate and nationalize whatever is left of Nabisco, and set up a five year plan for the reestablishment of Uneeda Biscuit, Royal Lunch (we'll have to change that to "People's Lunch," I think), and Crown Pilot crackers, these Goya deals are the closest Uneeda fans are ever likely to find. Get a bagful and some of that swanky-swig cheese in a jar, and you'll be all set.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Polio was eliminated in the United States twenty years ago -- but now something very much like it is sweeping the country. Everything old is new again.

 

[3fingers]

Polio was eliminated in the United States twenty years ago -- but now something very much like it is sweeping the country. Everything old is new again.

This is the issue I have with the radical anti-vax crowd. I understand the fear, real or not, but I am also old enough to remember the "end" of people contracting some really nasty things that are now reappearing. We call it eradicating diseases, but they were never gone, just waiting for a suitable host. We saw it first here among the Amish.

 

[BobHufford]

The Google Earth Street View car...

 

[Touchofevil]

I wonder what ever happened to fashion frank, he was a pretty nice guy to have around The Lounge. Maybe he will reappear.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
He’s among several who kinda drifted away. We can hope that was only on account of changing interests.

If I were to hazard a guess, it would be that the membership here skews somewhat more senior than the population overall.

 

[Edward]

^^^^^
He’s among several who kinda drifted away. We can hope that was only on account of changing interests.

If I were to hazard a guess, it would be that the membership here skews somewhat more senior than the population overall.

Certainly I've noticed fewer young people (under 40s) in the last couple of years since our era of vintage was replaced in the fashion stakes by the later 60s, 70s and even the 80s. It's been interesting as an experience starting to see the rise of both nostalgia for an era I lived through - the 80s/90s - among others who lived through it, and perhaps even more so among the kids who weren't born then. Last few years I've been teaching undergrads who relate to Nirvana in the same way as I did Hendrix. Nirvana's Nevermind is now over twice as old as Never Mind the Bollocks was when I discovered the Sex Pistols. THat's messed with my sense of time a lot recently.

I noticed through some ads online this last week or two that Gilette are giving some serious promotion to a DE razor handle. Akin to - though not an exact replica of - their 1903 original model. Their social media people tell me that have no immediate plans to reissue the Fat Boy, but it's interesting they've gotten back into the DE game at all in terms of selling nice looking handles - biggest, mainstream shave company I've seen do that in a long time.

 

[LizzieMaine]

We Older Folks are, for better or worse, the last generation who will ever have any personal connection to the generation of the 1920s-40s -- our parents/grandparents. Within the next fifteen years or so, the Depression/WWII generation will be completely extinct. And when, within the next thirty years or forty years, we follow, that'll be it. "The Era" will be dead history, as dead as Byzantium.

Will it ever "reappear?" Not in the way we understand it. Elements of it might pop up as a cultural pastiche, in the way steampunk culture is a pastiche of the Victorian/Edwardian age, but if the passing of other eras is any indication, the realities and the trivialities of the period will be of interest only to professional historians. We're already pretty far along with that now -- even the last "Golden Era" revival, the swing craze of the late 1990s/early 2000s, was largely pastiche, and when the novelty wore off, so did the interest of most of that craze's participants in the period itself.

That's the fate of every historical/popular-culture period. It's also happening to "The Fifties" and "The Sixties" -- which went to pastiche almost as soon as they were over -- and before too many more years go by, those periods, too, will join The Era in cultural irrelevance. (My great regret is that I won't live long enough to see that happen to the '80s, a period I found highly toxic even when I was living in it. )