Thought you might find these pics of curiosity value. They're ads from a 1966 issue of "Electrical & Radio Trading," an old British trade journal.











And finally, here's what the well-appointed tradesman of 1966 might have been driving to his jobs:






[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 05-06-2002).]

I love old ads!

This is great, Paul...

I've got a collection of old National Geographics that I view from time to time for the ads nostalgia... Someday, I'll scan some stuff and post them.

Neat stuff!

Paul,

Is that low cost Petrol still around?

I'll bet you wish it was!

Bill

Paul-

Not only do you drive on the opposite side, but it looks like your switches are the other way around as well!

Paul--

Do always don your white lab coat when installing ring-circuit plugs? [cord caps] I know I do.

Paul--

Over in the colonies, you can search on "electric" at memory.loc.gov and spend months looking at all the hits.

One is: Knox County, Tennessee (Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)). Mr. Bacon adjusts an electric fan for his wife who is using an electric iron. The Bacons use 500 kilowatt hours of TVA electricity a month. 1942 June.

Yes, there's even some nostalgia in these ads for non-technical people: Our old LSD currency for example, and just look at those lovely old London telephone numbers - PERivale 8831 and ACOrn 0174. I love looking through stuff like this as well.

Crabtree and Wylex are two very well known manufacturers here and are still in business. Even that Manchester phone number for Wylex still works (998-5454), although it's answered as "Electrium" now, the current parent company. And although most of the models pictured here went out of production years ago, the Wylex "Standard Range" equipment is still made to the same pattern (although the plastic is a little thinner these days ).

Virgil (and everyone else of course):
I don't want to clutter Bill's web space with loads of JPG files, but if you're interested in seeing some more, I could scan some other ads from the journal and e-mail them to you.

Bill:
"Low cost petrol" is a very sore point with British motorists these days as our prices are now the highest in Europe! (And even the cheapest in Europe are expensive by American standards.) I was the tender age of 3 months when these ads appeared, but I believe that gas was around 4 shillings a gallon at that time.

Thanks to the 300% tax imposed (yes, three hundred percent, that's not a typo), current pump price at my local station is now 74.9 pence per liter -- That's U.S. $4.11 a gallon to you!

CT,
Yes, you're right about the switches, although there are some variations on switchgear.

Regular wall light switches and the switches on our receptacles etc. are always up=off, down=on. Main switchgear has changed over the years. The pre-war metal clad boxes with side handles were up=on. After WWII when "consumer units" appeared with "normal" main switches they changed to down=on as you see pictured here.

In the last few years, however, the main switches have started going back to up=on. I can only assume this was done because circuit-breakers have become much more common recently and it makes sense for the main switch to work the same way as the breakers. The U.S. is much more consistent to my way of thinking.

BJ,
Great link there with some interesting pics (darn, there goes the next two days' work!). I did a search on "electric" and one of the first references was for Kearney, Nebraska. Quite a coincidence as that's where I went for a job!

One last piece of trivia:
The van pictured is a product of the British outlet of General Motors. They made vehicles here under the names Vauxhall (cars) and Bedford (vans & light trucks).


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 05-07-2002).]

LOL!, a rather well dressed apprentice there!!!

yaknow...when i do renovations i always find old newspapers ( it was used as insulation here at one time...:eek , and i can't help but take a peek at them....

A couple of days ago I pulled out a few pages of a 1946 newspaper from the attic where I've been working.

There were a couple of stories of bravery from WWII that had just come to light at that time. It made for an interesting read during my lunch break.

Joe—re: "I have an interest in any old advertisements for electrical equipment and wondered if anyone has discovered them on the internet?" Poke around memory.loc.gov and use 'electric' as the keyword.

Example: http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/eaa/ephemera/A05/A0504/A0504-03-150dpi.html


[This message has been edited by Bjarney (edited 07-10-2002).]

Thanks! I looked and found this for starters:

http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/dynaweb/eaa/databases/maxwell/@Generic__Boo kView?DwebQuery=electric

I will be busy searching for the next few days!



[This message has been edited by Joe Tedesco (edited 07-10-2002).]

Just having a bit of a browse through some older topics.
Those ads are cool, Paul, really enjoyed looking at them!.