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1.5mm2 singles work quite nicely out of the box, 2.5 tend to tangle, requiring a second person to keep untangling.

Small packs of wire/cable seem to be a ripoff no matter where you are - here I found 10m 1.5mm2 NYM (roughly equivalent to a hypothetic #16 NM) for €14.50 and 50m for €14.90... guess what I bought!

Those little boxes are aimed at homeowners who don't know what they would do with 250' of wire.

Of course most don't know what they are doing with 50 feet either.

I don't remember the single conductors in boxes.
Just a few weeks ago cleaning out Dads garage I did find some of my old 14/3 in a box.

The stuff looked like todays 10/3 huge.

I got in the trades in the early 80's.

My record with single wire, as an aside, was 42 red #16 with 2 #14 in a 2-1/2" or 3". The foreman wasn't big on using fill tables, so that one got a bit interesting when, while hand-pulling it, I snapped the #16 lead. Then there was the 3 hours of untangling the resultant head of cable (did I mention the 42 red wires?). The other trades were not thrilled with the 50' of space I needed for that bit'o'joy.

The fill calculation would let you use 1.25" conduit so that wasn't your problem. (based on THHN) I take it you didn't tape this into a bundle first.

Nope, no bundle, but they were tagged at both ends so at least we knew what was what (control lines for a VFD centrifuge). And yes, it was THHN / TFFN.

Holy Cow,

Not only do I remember this boxes, I had to haul about 100 of them for my old boss! The supply house was changing from TW to THHN wire and put out a display of this old wire. My old boss ( who loved a bargain) found out and bought the whole display. All 100 boxes of them. He got it for a good price, but for the next 20 years, he was using old TW wire. When we loaded up the truck, the truck almost got a flat tire! I believe to this day, he still has some, even though he bought in in 1977/1978?

Oh and I just remembered, one of the first jobs we did with this found wire was a swim clubs docks and racing lanes. We had to run a pipe 200-300 feet from dock to dock. Then I had to pull a bunch (7-10) #10 TW solid wire. We didn't have an electric puller, I used my muscles only. (I was also very much younger back then) Well I almost dropped my family jewels trying to pull these wires.

Ahh, glad to jar a few memories... although mostly bad ones!

Even at a very young age, the transition from TW & Boxed Rolls, to THHN & Spools was Sooooooo lovely!

Learned how to feed way before pulling, and of course, the Boxed Rolls of TW were common Protocol!
(typically a mix of wet and dry Boxes).

There are a few other legacy items to post.
Will do so ASAP.

-- Scott

Yeah that bring back old days I haven't see them for a quite a while they are famous for being pain in rear end when the spool in the box is near empty the last 30 or so meters will tangle up like rough yarn ball.

Merci.
Marc