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An EC friend bought the inventory, sight unseen, of a closed EC business whose owner had passed away. The items were stored in the garage of the former owner and had been there for about 20 years. Not much except 5,000 Hubbell duplex recpts still in cartons. When his warehouseman brought the inventory to his shop, he found that they were all ungrounded recpts with carton dates from the 50’s. I saw some of the stuff and the recpts were a beautiful device and built so a tank wouldn’t damage it. He did get a few usable Bulldog safety switches still in cartons. No date on cartons and I don’t know when Bulldog ceased production. Remainder of items were pure junk, the old 60/60 and 4 service panels from the 50’s, old spring connectors with “diapers”, some romex that was tar impregnated, type R wire, bakelite outlet boxes, etc. Sure brought back old memories.

Rowdy

Yeah, Hubbell built 'em to last!

Things like surface-mount tumbler switches and porcelain and plastic surface-mount sockets still remind me of my childhood since I grew up in apartments and apartments that used such stuff.

Ditto the un-grounded T-slot receptacles, screw-in mini-circuit breakers with Edison bases, Bakelite NON-POLARIZED triple-taps, etc.

I have an old two-pin T-slot single receptacle by Hubbell here...bought it in a salvage shop for a dollar because I liked the design on the face (oh boy.. ).

There's still a good amount of tension on the contacts and it still grips the plugs fairly tightly (it's not in service, just an elegant little paperweight)

When I once lucked on to a couple of Hubbell/Bryant receptacles in a hardware store and installed one, I fell in love with the suckers. You practically need two hands to disconnect something from them. And it's easy to get the wire around the terminal screws!

Too bad they're so hard to find in run-of-the-mill hardware stores - especially places like the big orange that now seems to be in love with Leviton.

Leave-It-On doesn't hold a candle to Hubbell!!!!! You get better quality for a bit less money with Hubbell....and it's made in the USA!

What did your friend wind up doing with all that stuff? I'm sure he was pulling his hairs out when he opened some of those boxes ("what did I do???")...

I do a lot of old work , and get my share of hands-on with goods from the past.

Holding some #12 nm side by side to todays wire, disco's, etc is great perspective.