Last month I had the chance of clearing out the storage shed/work shop of (most likely) a former electrician before the building was razed. It was chock full of ancient supplies, mostly still new in the box 60s and 70s stuff like breakers, T12 flourescent tubes (anyone need some 20W white? Got a box of 25 *g* as well as 7 40W wharm white), switches, receptacles, plugs, boxes, 40 three meter sticks of 1950s or older conduit (steel clad tar paper),...

The one absolutely unusual thing was a collection of almost full boxes of US made HiScale wire nuts. I'm fairly sure they weren't officially exported (anything sold here would have to be labeled in German) and I don't have the slightest idea how they got here. Wirenuts are fairly rare here, even though they can be found occasionally.





I find it interesting how they inked out the two lines here instead of using different boxes for each type.



"Mr HiScale"


Plain black:


There were some newer boxes too, one of them rated Cu/Al.


Do you have any idea how old these boxes might be?

I think in total I've got 4 boxes of different sizes.

Seeing that everything on one pic was blacked out other then copper to copper, it may be from the era when the connector manufactures started making standard wire connectors CU/CU only, instead of CU/CU, CU/AL, & AL/AL as they were.

Have a box of each of Ideal red Wingnuts & 3M gray Scotchlocks, that are listed for CU/CU,AL/CU,AL/AL.

Not sure how old they are but could they have been US "military surplus"?

Not that likely unless they're pre-1955 (no foreign military in Austria since that year). Of course they could have been military surplus in Germany and then found their way to Austria somehow... but that seems unlikely. Besides I think the German US facilities are 120V 50Hz and mostly wired to German standards including NEMA receptacles that fit German boxes.

I'd guess either they were grey imports or private imports by someone who made a trip to HD on his US holiday trip.

The brand is a odd one. Wonder if they still exist? Me, too lazy to search, had enough of Google for today as have been trying to find more info on a Hettich Blue Mini & there is very little of what am looking for... That is question for another time & another forum.

A quick Google search shows that the Hi-scale trademark was registered in 1946 and delisted in 1990. The owner at time of delisting was Heyman manufacturing, which as far as I can tell is now called Heyco. They seem to make all sorts of electrical parts including wire nuts.

Heyco as in the chassis strain reliefs for the 120 volt line cords that we see on many pieces of electrical equipment ??

Yep, the same company, they make all sorts of neat fittings.

Yeah, I remember "Mr. Hi-Scale". Until recently I had a box of those wirenuts, bought in the late 60s-early 70s.

Cool, thanks for the info!
Apparently wirenuts enjoyed a brief spurt of popularity around that time in Austria and then disappeared again. My brother's current apartment (ca. 1968) has wirenuts all over the place, except for later additions that were done using choc block style connectors.

I don't really know what to do with those wirenuts... (have 3 boxes in different sizes and a bunch of loose ones) - Wago connectors are faster to use and almost the only accepted standard practice nowadays, even though you can still get listed wirenuts.

I did try to use some on stranded wire in a light fixture but eventually gave up - they wouldn't grab the stranded wires at all and just fall off again.

Wago style connectors are still pretty rare here. Most use wire nuts still. the number 74B looks like a wire nut size from IDEAL industries as did a graphic on one of the packages.
I wonder if IDEAL original wire nuts might be these, rebranded?

I had to buy some wagos for a job awhile ago, customers "friend" wired the customers basement and just bonded the device box and cut off the excess conductor and didnt bond the receptacle