Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[BobHufford]

We get gangs of kids selling magazines and sometimes guys wanting to trim our trees. Haven't seen the Fuller Brush lady in years. They used to have a factory outlet in a nearby town, but that is also gone.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I still have a bunch of Fuller cleaning products from the '90s under my sink, but that was the last time I heard of them. We had one of the famous Lucite Fuller Man letter openers, back when people used letter openers instead of tearing the mail open with their teeth.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

Was the letter opener the free gift the Fuller man gave the housewife to get in the door? The guy who invented Brillo was a Fuller guy and he tried to figure out what to use as the get-in-the-door gift. The cheapest cleaning item they had was steel wool. In a moment of inspiration he thought of loading them with soap. He made up a batch on his kitchen stove and set out on his rounds. The next time he made his rounds, nobody was interested in his brushes. They wanted more of those steel wool soap scouring pads. He knew he was onto something and got a patent and came up with a trade name: Brillo. Another fortune born from an unlikely source.

 

[Haversack]

Growing up, the door stops at home were some of my father's old drafting paperweights. (He was a civil engineer.) These were circular pancakes of sueded leather filled with lead shot. They made good door stops as you could wedge them under the door. Of course when I was working on my M.Arch and back home for Christmas, two orange leather drafting paperweights appeared in my stocking. Surprisingly, they also make very good paperweights for large sheets of drafting vellum and mylar.

 

[Trenchfriend]

back when people used letter openers instead of tearing the mail open with their teeth.

Does anyone on earth like I do?:
I'm starting with disrupting the top of the letter one centimeter on the left end, holding the letter with the other hand at the downside and imitating the letter-opener with my middle-finger from the hole on.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Ink eradicator. Not those chalky rubber "ink erasers," but a chemical bleachy-smelling solution that came in a bottle with a glass-rod applicator like you'd use with iodine. It would cause ink writing to go away, and leave a smooth surface for new writing. Used to be able to get it in office supply and stationery stores, but go into Staples and ask for it and they'll look at you like you have six heads.

It probably went away because it was a useful weapon in the arsenal of forgers and check-raisers, but whatever the reason I haven't seen it since the seventies.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Ah, like this one:
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=ink+eradictor&view=detailv2&&id=A3F15CD0ACEC2309B4680516CD112568507C8AA1&selectedIndex=0&ccid=bTr+mIIJ&simid=608016067187052497&thid=OIP.M6d3afe988209060966c6738e53c60371o0&ajaxhist=0

 

[ChrisB]

Ink eradicator. Not those chalky rubber "ink erasers," but a chemical bleachy-smelling solution that came in a bottle with a glass-rod applicator like you'd use with iodine.

Iodine itself is pretty hard to find, and the glass rod applicator has long since been replaced by a plastic one.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Ink eradicator. Not those chalky rubber "ink erasers," but a chemical bleachy-smelling solution that came in a bottle with a glass-rod applicator like you'd use with iodine. It would cause ink writing to go away, and leave a smooth surface for new writing. Used to be able to get it in office supply and stationery stores, but go into Staples and ask for it and they'll look at you like you have six heads.

It probably went away because it was a useful weapon in the arsenal of forgers and check-raisers, but whatever the reason I haven't seen it since the seventies.

You can make your own ink eradicator with calcium hypochlorite and sodium carbonate. Potassium permanganate will also dissolve ink, but it's kind of a mess.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Growing up, the door stops at home were some of my father's old drafting paperweights. (He was a civil engineer.) These were circular pancakes of sueded leather filled with lead shot. They made good door stops as you could wedge them under the door. Of course when I was working on my M.Arch and back home for Christmas, two orange leather drafting paperweights appeared in my stocking. Surprisingly, they also make very good paperweights for large sheets of drafting vellum and mylar.

Oh man, those used to be everywhere around the office, now you hardly seem them except for the few old timers left, and the almost old timers like me. There are a lot of things that were common when I was a young whippersnapper geologist that you don't see much of anymore...map weights, 10-point dividers, parallel rulers, Gerber scales, planimeters, plan measures...heck, I can't even remember the last time I saw someone using a protractor or a simple engineer's scale.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Professional seamstresses use those for weighting down pattern pieces when you're cutting fabric. Or you can just get a lug bolt off a truck, stitch a fabric cover on it and use that. Be sure you ask whoever owns the truck, though.

 

[tonyb]

I stepped into an antique (and reproduction) map peddler's shop a few days ago.

Yup, he made use of such weights.

 

[ChrisB]

Since my filing system consists of piles of paper stacked all around my office, and I use a fan in hot weather, I have numerous pieces of brass scrap metal performing as improvised paperweights.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

Not exactly a "thing" that has disappeared, but it occurred to me today that it's been years since I heard a car backfire. I guess cars burn fuel more efficiently these days, but it was once a common sound.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I was starting up the Plodge one cold night after work and it let out a bang that absolutely terrified a young couple walking along the sidewalk. Too much choke.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Not exactly a "thing" that has disappeared, but it occurred to me today that it's been years since I heard a car backfire. I guess cars burn fuel more efficiently these days, but it was once a common sound.

Or the engine-oil?

 

[2jakes]

Police whistles or cops on street corners directing traffic.
Gone.

Public speaking.
When I was a kid and my folks
took me downtown shopping.
There was typically someone
talking to no one in particular
about religion or some topic.

I also no longer see newspaper
vendors "barking" the latest
headlines or even newspaper
or shoe-shine stands in the city.

 

[Fading Fast]

Police whistles or cops on street corners directing traffic.
Gone.

Public speaking.
When I was a kid and my folks
took me downtown shopping.
There was typically someone
talking to no one in particular
about religion or some topic.

I also no longer see newspaper
vendors "barking" the latest
headlines or even newspaper
or shoe-shine stands in the city.

New York still has all but one of those.

Several busy street corners have police officers directing traffic (and it is a very, very stressful job as they only put them on the really crazy corners). For a period of time, my morning commute took me past such a corner and, as my walking across time coincided with her calmer period in the traffic cycle, we developed a very nice rapport. There are some corners that are so crazy, these women and men use whistles, screaming, glowing hand held lights and much body English to keep it all working - kudos to them.

Plenty of people still "preach" or pontificate publicly - with much passion - with our without a crowd in this city.

Also, while down in number, there are still street-side shoe shine stands with some kids hawking the business.

While there are plenty of newsstands left, can't say I've heard anyone bark out a headline since the '90s.

 

[2jakes]

^^^^^
National Shirt Shop.

A store downtown where the
owner would have an employee
stand outside the shop and tried
to convince you why you needed to come inside to shop.
Some were very aggressive at this.

I don't see this anymore.

From what you write about NY,
my guess is that it still exists
there.

 

[Fading Fast]

⇧ absolutely. Clothing stores, barbers and strip clubs are the most common to hire people to stand on the street to convince you to come in. Some are insanely aggressive while some just quietly hand out fliers. It's all just part of the constant din of this crazy city.