Just a "fun" topic... I have a 1940 and 1956, wish I had a 1920 or better.

Nick,

I have all my NEC's from 1975 until present, plus a friend of mine gave me some old NEC's. I have a 1962, 1956, 1947, 1933 and a 1922 City of Elizabeth Code here in NJ.

I believe Joe T has a large collection of old NEC's.

BTW, back then they were called ,"National Board of Fire Underwriters."

Nick,

Just another thought, the 1933 NEC was only 304 pages long.
There were articels and sections in the book. Article 1 was definitions.

If anyone is interested, I will go through the book and list the articles and sections.

The 1962 book looks more like the modern code book that we are use to. with sec. 250 is grounding and 310 is wire conductors, etc.

I sure dont but wirking on it. I know a guy who's colkection goes back to 1955

What is the oldest code book ever written in the USA, or elsewhere? Some insurance company, city or state or maybe the feds must have said "Electricity is quite useful, and we want people to have it, but we've been getting too many fires and shocks. We need a code, and an electrician licensing board"... In the 1890's?

That was the one page code written by the New York board of fire underwriters. Joe T used to send people a copy on faux parchment "certificate" paper.
I may still have one around here.

1894 or 1896. I have a .pdf copy of it. It's like 60 pages

Greg,

Yeah, I had one of Joe T's 1 page codes. That was when things were simple right?

I lost a few 50s & 60s from Sandy. Oldest now is a '75 in the office.

I have a 1980 copy of the NJ UCC, 2 'booklets', now that is when it was what I call an 'easy read'!!

75 was the first code I bought. It was cheap enough in those days that it was an impulse buy item on the supply house counter.

Mike Holt has the first (1899) NEC available on his site as a .pdf file

It's all of 41 pages

http://www.mikeholt.com/documents/nec/NCSE1899.pdf

1899 was NEC #2. 1897 was the "first", as you will find stated in many NEC versions. There was ALSO one "pre-NEC" version in 1895 written by the NBFU, but it wasn't called the the NEC until the 1897 "first" version.

Electricity was not widely used enough before the 1890s to warrant any kind of interest in making a standard. Unless you were wealthy (think mansion+estate) or a special company or an experimenter/scientist, electricity was an alien thing to you. For many, it was in the category of "black magic" and "witchcraft"... however archaic that may seem.

You may recount descriptions of Edison's "displays" in the 1880's. He strung up a handful of dim, hot lightbulbs around the boardinghouse and it was a public spectacle that literally drew CROWDS. That's just how unknown electricity was in those times.

Nick,

I know of some plumbing inspectors around here who still call electricity "Black Magic".

Crazy!

To elaborate more on the old days... performing magicians and other "mystic" stage acts often made use of very simple electrical apparatus to achieve effects that made numerous audience members faint from shock and surprise. Static electricity and electromagnetism were usually the main players in these stage tricks.

Yup, dated 1881...

https://www.electrical-contractor.net/NFPA/1881nec.pdf

Bill

Bill,

I still have my copy of Joe T's 1 page NEC. He also wanted to buy my old NEC's when he found out that I had them.

I have every CEC but I also have the first City of Victoria Electrical Bylaw from 1913.
It was written with the cooperation with the cities of Portland, Seattle and Vancouver.
The source documents were the NEC and the railroad act.
The first Canadian Code book was from 1927 and was mostly identicle to the NEC of the same period

mikesh:
Thanks for posting the above.
How many pages are in the '13 Bylaw?