Want to buy or sell something? Check the classifieds
  • The Fedora Lounge is supported in part by commission earning affiliate links sitewide. Please support us by using them. You may learn more here.

Vintage Things That Will NOT Disappear In Your Lifetime

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
My "Submariner".

IMG_8051.JPG

Since 1977. It's been with me all over the globe & it's still ticking. :)

Also:
Hasselblad. (500)
Leica. (screwmount)
Nikon (FTN)
 
Last edited:

DocCasualty

One of the Regulars
Messages
157
Location
Northern MI
Ah, it seems, that "Motrin" is the most popular name for Ibuprofen in the US? That could be that reason, why they mentioned it in "Dr. House" even on german tone?
Yes, it was the first FDA approved form of ibuprofen in the US back in the 70's, so they held that patent for several years before others like Advil and generics jumped into the game. Just like Kleenex and other originals, the trade name Motrin has become virtually synonymous with ibuprofen here.
 

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
15xk6ky.jpg

Found a newspaper article with a photo of the house I lived in
when I was eight.
It’s about 100 years old, although not sure if it classifies as vintage.

It’s considered “old border vernacular architecture” that still exists.
I decided this morning to capture it on canvas.
There’s no meaning or message in this painting for anyone
except for me.
It is also very relaxing.

Finished! :)
24b3gg2.jpg
 
Last edited:
Messages
10,939
Location
My mother's basement
^^^^^
Built at a time when many an "average" person could count among his skills how to build a house. Hence the "vernacular" handle.

Whatever one makes if the late Richard M. Nixon, the opening sentence of his autobiography -- "I was born in a house my father built" -- is among the most telling of any sentence in any memoir of which I am familiar. It discloses volumes about where its author is "coming from," in at least a couple of senses of that phrase.

Nixon's father bought a house kit from a mail-order catalog, so he didn't exactly start from scratch. But being born AT HOME, in a house built by its owner, was a fairly common occurrence back when Nixon issued his first vocalizations, and quite uncommon when he issued his last.

And besides, what qualities as "from scratch"? Is felling one's own trees and then milling them into lumber required?
 
Last edited:
Messages
17,215
Location
New York City
...

And besides, what qualities as "from scratch"? Is felling one's own trees and then milling them into lumber required?

I'm with you. If somebody drops a bunch of pre-cut wood, nails, plumbing parts and other house materials in your yard with an instruction manual - and you assemble that into a house, you get my vote for having built it "from scratch."
 
Messages
10,939
Location
My mother's basement
There are entire neighborhoods here of those Sears and Roebuck kit houses. They were, a hundred years ago, the best chance the average urban worker had of owning their own home.

Nice houses, judging from what I've seen. I suspect that only a person well-studied on the topic could tell these kit houses from their neighboring contemporaries.

In many such comparisons, the kit houses might be identified by their more elegant architecture. They were designed by professionals, after all, which was not necessarily true of their "vernacular" neighbors.
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
Messages
33,755
Location
Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
The ones here are recognized by the fact that there are usually five or six of them right in a row, all of them clearly built from identical plans. The local limestone processing company had some kind of a deal going with Sears to furnish housing for its employees, and they built many of exactly the same model of house. Most of them have been altered after a hundred years in one way or another -- different porches, altered siding or windows, additions and dormers, things like that, but they're still, clearly the same house. And the fact that most of them are still standing and still occupied after a century suggests that both the pre-fabricated kit assemblies and the workmanship involved in putting them together were both of high quality -- certainly far more so than the mass-produced beaverboard houses of the postwar era.
 
Messages
10,939
Location
My mother's basement
There's nothing new in "tract" housing, even if it wasn't commonly called that a century and more ago. Many an old city residential district was built out at the same time by the same builders working from similar when not identical plans. The cookie cutters have changed, but they are still cookie cutters.
 
Last edited:

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
This is the style that closely resembles my grandmother's home.
IMG_8060.JPG


Nobody took photos of the house.
I'm painting from memory. I still need
to put the windows on the side. That
white pit-bull on the side is 2jakes.


IMG_5879.JPG

Someone snap a photo of me in front of
the house although not much can be seen except for the curve cement and flower pot. I was 2 at the time.
IMG_1825.JPG


Here's a close-up.
IMG_8061.JPG
Inside to the left is my grandmother's
"candlestick" telephone. I recall the
phone numbers began with the alphabet.
As in CA-6-3232. (This is now a bank number that gives you the current
time & temperature.)
 
Last edited:
Messages
10,939
Location
My mother's basement
And ...

Vernacular elements are often reflected more in the finish materials than in the underlying architectural styles. Craftsman-style houses in the Seattle area are typically sided in cedar shingles and/or shiplap. (Shiplap up high, shingles down low.) In Denver they are typically brick faced. But it's the same eave brackets, same flared rooflines, same porches, same roof dormers front and back.
 

Forum statistics

Threads
109,250
Messages
3,077,296
Members
54,183
Latest member
UrbanGraveDave
Top