I've been finding myself getting exceedingly irritated with how cheap shit is made these days. Seems like anything the major retailers sell today is junk and is usually broken within a year unless you take extra special care of it. So I've been trying to find older vintage stuff that's cooler and made better than anything I can find in a store these days. Seems like paying twice as much for a better made piece will end up saving you money in the long run. It's crazy how 40, 50, 60 year old pieces will outlast anything you can buy brand new today. I've just began replacing my new chinese made junk with old school vintage products that still work. My grandpa recently gave me a lunch box just like this one. The first day I took it to work I got around 10 compliments and instantly became the alpha due to raised testosterone levels. It's crazy how small it is compared to the lunch boxes of today. Really shows you how much more we eat these days. If you're going to get one of these and you like taking leftovers to work, start buying some of those Hillshire Farms lunch meat tubs because they fit perfectly in there. The second thing I recently got was this vintage sprinkler. I've gone through 3 "brand new" versions of these things since I've owned my home. New ones are made of plastic and become brittle when out in the sun. Plus they seem to break when they oscillate back and forth while water runs through them. Strange because that's the whole point of their existence. Anygay, I bought a bad boy very similar to this off ebay over the summer and let me tell you, this thing runs like a raped ape. The metal to plastic ratio alone is enough to give any grandpa out there a boner. What do you guys have?
hell yes. #1 - furniture. New furniture has ridiculous price markup and is often made relatively poorly in comparison to the vintage stuff. Most of my 40s era house is filled w/ furniture from the 30-40s. Still costs less and the shit was built to last, for sure. #2 - Old Scotts push lawnmower. Just sharpen the blades every few years. The thing is a tank. And it's quite satisfying to mow this way. The neighborhood crackheads always make fun of me for not buying "a real mower." #3- Old Stanley Steel flask
Can you post a pic of a lawnmower like yours? I've been wanting to get an old school one for a while now. Those things were definitely built to last and easier to maintain.
i'd love a vintage tambourine, something that sounds like a santa claus is sprinkling magic snow on the entire world
+1. Estate sales are the shit, although a bit morbid rummaging through a dead persons' belongings. I've gotten a lot of high quality cooking gear that way (i.e. Le Creuset stuff for like $10).
I'm afraid I'm too ignorant to know how to post pictures. Try googling Scott's Push Mower. They still sell them at the big box stores, and they seem similar to mine (same design, all metal)
Basically everything, yes. It can become a fetish, but totally, if you're someone who's smart enough to appreciate quality, you'll soon realize that the 'old junk' you can get for some huge discount at a yard sale is often times massively superior than whatever you buy new for 20X the cost. My girl used a Singer sewing machine from the 1930's that was absolutely crazy in terms of quality. These things were literally built to last f o r e v e r with proper care. Two radios in the living room are restored wood cabinet units from the 30's- one's a Crosley 181 tombstone like this The other's a Grunow Teledial console like this. Have working handplanes that are pushing 100 years old, still with the original blades, that I use all the time. Also have some machinists tools that are older than my dad, still in heavy use. Also love classic cars, my daily driver is a 20+ year old Buick B Body. Fucking disgrace we don't build stuff like this anymore, or that to do so is considered 'boutique' and demanding of some absurd price.
There's a reason why it's so expensive when it's "boutique". There are like four and a half BILLION more people on earth than in 1950. Lot more money around, lot of people that can afford radios and all that jazz. Hard to produce handcrafted goods when your market is so huge.
Hard to argue with that. However, some types of products don't lend themselves to cheap foreign mass production. That's why there still is a (growing) market for "boutique" type manufacturing here in the States. It's almost always true that you get what you pay for, and when it comes to certain things, lots of people are willing to pay more for superior quality. From last month's Atlantic Monthly: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/12/mr-china-comes-to-america/309160/
Undoubtedly. And those things exist. I was just giving a reason why. I prefer vintage things if I can get them.
My house is like a museum or an episode of oddities because of several relatives that passed recently that left me their antique stuff. From vintage Guitar amps, furniture, radios,LP records and reel to reel, copper and train engineer lamps, 19th century paintings to old books to weird stuff like an antique fire extinguisher collection, antique scales and force gauges, japanese collectables, wood working tools, 19th century phones and telegraphs, a King GeorgeVI coronation porcelain dinnerware set frm 1936 a coin and arrowhead collection, antique toy trains, even my piano I record on is from 1882 etc etc none of it except the records and amps were collected by me, and in truth I could do without it all except the musical instruments, photos and the letters. I'm starting the process of passing this stuff to other relatives and friends because I don't feel like I can move to somewhere else in the world with all these possessions and it also makes me feel somewhat trapped.
Dude those are awesome, how much do they run if you don't mind me asking? http://www.classicshaving.com/Home.html I saw this site in another thread and thought all that stuff was really cool. The prices are astronomical on some of the things though. It may not literally be vintage but the look and the prices means the stuff is probably built like a vintage razor would be built.
I don't know anything about coins and medals but I'll post some of the interesting ones for you -maybe you can tell me what to do with them.
Hell of a deal man. I'm going to have to look into those. I've never used one and I do most my shaving in the shower without looking, so I'm not sure how well those will work for me.
Those economics don't quite wash. The number of people on earth doesn't quite track the imperative for a given company to make something better rather than worse. When you take the price of a (Widget X Made In 1939) and adjust it for inflation, you soon realize that consumer sentiment drives the need for garbage; we just aren't willing to spend a weeks wages on something we can get in a much lower quality form for a days wages. General shit was *a lot* more expensive back then. Combine our relentless drive for 'cheaper' with the makers relentless drive for profit and cutting corners to save costs, the result is incredibly poorly made shit relative to the formula of years ago that emphasized quality first, then cost. Today, it's cost first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth- somewhere around ninety seventh comes a scant consideration for what is deemed 'quality' by todays standards, which basically amounts to ensuring the object in the package is shaped like what the consumer wants and will last just long enough to outlive the retailers return policy.
