Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[2jakes]

Can't say if the police qualify as "vintage"!
But I don't see cops directing traffic on busy intersections downtown as in the past.
Mostly video cameras.
The "mama patrols" are becoming just as rare as local barber shops in my town.

 

[Trenchfriend]

I've learned a new old term, some minutes ago:

"Docker hat (in washed Canvas)"

 

[ChrisB]

I don't recall ever in my now moderately lengthy adult life having a TV set repaired, let alone repaired by a person who came to the house.
.

Nowadays you just chuck 'em out!

 

[2jakes]

The Disappearance Of The Instruction Manual | Popular Science

 

[tonyb]

Nowadays you just chuck 'em out!

Yup. I gave away a couple of CRT TVs, both still in good working order, last summer. A 27-incher and a little 13-incher were left at the curb, with their remotes taped to 'em. The little guy was gone in short order. Had to take the big one to Value Village. They took it, without a hint of enthusiasm.

These things will attain value as collectibles some day. But I have no interest in storing the things while awaiting that day.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I replaced the picture tube in my TV just last night. Had to dig around on eBay to find the replacement, but it was findable. This is a set I picked from the town dump over thirty years ago, and it was over thirty years old at the time, so I think I've gotten my money's worth out of it.

 

[ChrisB]

Someday, people will be collecting VCRs.

 

[vitanola]

I replaced the picture tube in my TV just last night. Had to dig around on eBay to find the replacement, but it was findable. This is a set I picked from the town dump over thirty years ago, and it was over thirty years old at the time, so I think I've gotten my money's worth out of it.

View attachment 71397

Is that a 17" tube? I still have a few new in box "Silverama" picture tubes. At least one each of the 8DP4S, 14WP4S, 16DP4A, 17BP4DS, 17HP4CS, 17QP4DS, 20HP4ES, 21FP4DS, 21YP4BS, and 21DLP4BS. All left-overs from a television repair shop's stock. I've used up all of the 10BP4's, 10FP4's, 12LP4's and 12KP4's and have long since sold off ll of the Photofacts which were my reason for buying the stock. These other tubes are seldom used, for no one really restores 1950's rectangualr screen sets these days.

 

[tonyb]

Someday, people will be collecting VCRs.

Some already do, I'd bet.

 

[2jakes]

Some already do, I'd bet.

I have Sony, Panasonic, JVC and other VCRs including boxes of beta, VHS,
reel to reel tapes and machines which I accumulated over the years and kept
them for sentimental reasons.
At my place of work, a television studio. I kept an old "On-The-Air" sign
and microphones that were no longer in use and were being thrown away.
One room of my house comprises of bikes and bike parts. Another room is
full of leather jackets from all years and styles.

Leather jackets was the reason I joined the Fedora Lounge.
But I rarely go there anymore unless I have a need to be
chastised by the hat & leather jacket "experts".

The garage holds my trucks from the '30s and '40s.
I'd like to think of myself as a collector, but truth is...I'm a hoarder!

 

[Trenchfriend]

I don't know, how much teachers all over the world teach this in primary- or secondary-school, between the lines, when kids are attentive. I mean the little tricks of life, a teacher tell the kids in the break or sometimes in the lessons.

What is the best, cheap and strong (auxiliary)cleaner for little surfaces, when regular polishes aren't worth?

Your own strong enzymatic spit! With a tissue or handkerchief, etc..

I've learned this from our ethics-teacher in the very early 5th class, when He shows it on a overhead-projector foil. Clever, intellectual teacher, the kids can learn from.

Best lessons of life, you can learn in a public german school.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Is that a 17" tube? I still have a few new in box "Silverama" picture tubes. At least one each of the 8DP4S, 14WP4S, 16DP4A, 17BP4DS, 17HP4CS, 17QP4DS, 20HP4ES, 21FP4DS, 21YP4BS, and 21DLP4BS. All left-overs from a television repair shop's stock. I've used up all of the 10BP4's, 10FP4's, 12LP4's and 12KP4's and have long since sold off ll of the Photofacts which were my reason for buying the stock. These other tubes are seldom used, for no one really restores 1950's rectangualr screen sets these days.

Yep, it's a 17HP4. When I found the set the tube had a broken neck, but I knew an old repairman with a junkyard of old sets he let me dig thru until I found one. Worked fine for a very long time, but it's been nearing the end of the run for a while now, so I had my eye out for a new one. The tube I got had been part of an NRI "Build Your Own TV" kit which for one reason or another never got finished.

The TV itself is an RCA 17-S-450. Nothing spectacular from a design point of view, but I needed a TV when I first found it, and it served the purpose quite well. Very easy to work on, and puts out a decent picture and sound. Television only came to Maine in 1953, so you will be unlikely to find too many sets here older than this one.

 

[tonyb]

Yup. I gave away a couple of CRT TVs, both still in good working order, last summer. A 27-incher and a little 13-incher were left at the curb, with their remotes taped to 'em. The little guy was gone in short order. Had to take the big one to Value Village. They took it, without a hint of enthusiasm.

These things will attain value as collectibles some day. But I have no interest in storing the things while awaiting that day.

Now I'm questioning my own memory. Perhaps that large TV was among the items accepted at the donation station at Value Village, and perhaps it wasn't. I have vague recollections of the county refuse transfer station having a container for electronics only (they had another spot for large household appliances, and one for car tires, etc,).

There are items many thrift stores will not accept (mattresses, for instance), because they can't sell them, either by law (in the case of mattresses) or because few people if any wish to buy them.

 

[LizzieMaine]

A lot of places will no longer accept TV sets or computer monitors because of the issue of disposal if they don't sell -- especially CRT sets, because of the heavy metals used in the glass. Our local dump has a special shed for electronics, and you have to pay a fee to dispose of TVs or monitors. My TV I just picked up off the ground, minutes after the previous owner dumped it, but 1986 was a different world.

 

[Fading Fast]

As to vintage things that have disappeared ...

The come-to-you TV repairman. Remember him? He set up his big mirror in the living room and everybody got the hell out of the way while he pulled the TV away from the wall, took the back off, and fiddled with it.

I don't recall ever in my now moderately lengthy adult life having a TV set repaired, let alone repaired by a person who came to the house.

Another vintage thing that has disappeared ...

Expensive consumer electronics of just about any description, TV sets included. Look at what a new "full size" color TV set your folks back in, say, 1966. A month's pay or more, for us working-class stiffs. In our neighborhood, a new color TV was a BFD. It kinda elevated a family's status for a week or so. Now, a TV of a similar screen size can be had for what a working schmo earns in a day or two. A great big 'un, a TV on a scale almost unimaginable thru our 1966 eyes, might cost what you make in a week or so. You CAN spend a whole lot more than that, if what you want is the latest technology. But you can get last year's latest technology for a whole lot less.

Too many years and too many numbers have gone by for me to be fully confident in the exact accuracy (but it's close), but my Dad's new 25" color Magnavox in '64 cost (again, shaky memory - I was born the same year, so it's a handed down story) $400 or $500. Not a small amount of money, at all, today, but according to my handy-dandy internet inflation calculator about $3000 - $4000 in today's dollars.

And we were far from rich and my dad did not part with a dollar, let along four or five hundred of them, casually. Ten and twenty years later we were still treating that TV with much respect and it wasn't until I was (again, shaky memory) about 12 or so that I was even allowed to watch it by myself.

And, yes, the TV repair guy came out to the house when it went on the fritz and sometime could affect repairs there or, in a what made for a sad time, had to take it back to the shop for a week or two.

I just bought my mom a 20" Samsung flat panel for her small bedroom for $140 or (according to the handy dandy inflation calculator again) $18 in 1964 money. Remember when a 20" TV was big?

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
I got several years on you, but not so many as to make a generational difference. I never knew a world without television, but I clearly recall color TV being a BIG DEAL. When I was a grade schooler a color TV was not a common fixture in most homes I ever visited. They were just too costly for the average working-class person.

So the appliances themselves are much less expensive these days. But I'd wager that we are spending considerably more on televised entertainment, even in adjusted dollars, than we ever have. What Comcast gets out of me on an annual basis would easily buy a couple of really big flat screens.

 

[Fading Fast]

⇧ Our color TV looked out of place in our very modest "Wonder Years" (like the TV show) home - like when you see a Mercedes parked in a modest-income neighborhood driveway. My dad was a professional gambler and (pretty sure) bookie and sports was a business to him - so the TV (in the crazy world I grew up in) was a "business machine." (And, yes, he had one of those old adding machines with a hand crank that he used every day as part of his "business.")

Time Warner (now Spectrum as they never tire of telling me - as if I care at all, "meet the new boss..." and all) gets the price of a few new TVs out of me every year. But in truth, especially with the DVR, we get outstanding entertainment value for that money versus movie theaters, real theaters (never go - hate them, but still a valid comparison), the old Blockbuster model, etc. That said, with Netflix and Amazon Prime - I'm beginning to contemplate a change where I cut Time Warner (excuse me, Spectrum) back dramatically and maybe add another service to fill in some of the gaps - just early thought right now.

 

[2jakes]

^^^^^^
Last time I went to the movies was when "Raiders of the Lost Ark" was new in theaters.
I've been a customer of TW/Spec for
years that as of 2016, they now provide
me with all the "premium" channels at
no charge.
But over the years I've had to call &
threatened to quit and switch to other
cable companies.
For me, most of the movies today are
high in tech but low in story or plot
content.
I mostly watch TCM & PBS.
But it's good to know I can scan
the gadzillion channels available.
If there's nothing I find interesting
at least I gave my fingers a workout
with the remote.

 

[Trenchfriend]

but 1986 was a different world.

Kids, born in 1984, 1985 and 1986, begin step by step to rule the world now, oops.

 

[2jakes]

^^^^
This probably falls into other categories as well.

For the better part of my life the Presidents have always been older than me.
That has now disappeared.
This is trivial but the realization is quite evident today.