ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Who has the biggest collection of antique NECs?

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?