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40 Vintage Gifts for People Who Are Sick of Crap

LizzieMaine

Bartender
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32,958
Location
Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
I think it's because, generalizing here, the people who seriously collect catalins aren't interested in them as radios, but either as decor/kitsch/art deco objects to be placed on shelves and admired at cocktail parties, or as "investments" in the same sense that comic books and baseball cards are hoarded for their speculative financial value. In either case, actually using them as radios would be the last thing on the owner's mind.
 

Bruce Wayne

My Mail is Forwarded Here
I think it's because, generalizing here, the people who seriously collect catalins aren't interested in them as radios, but either as decor/kitsch/art deco objects to be placed on shelves and admired at cocktail parties, or as "investments" in the same sense that comic books and baseball cards are hoarded for their speculative financial value. In either case, actually using them as radios would be the last thing on the owner's mind.
THat actually makes sense. This coming from a comic collector. I do not collect comics for any monatery value, I just enjoy reading them & I cannot bring myself to just throw them away when I am done.
 

Absinthe_1900

One Too Many
Messages
1,628
Location
The Heights in Houston TX
They almost never use Catalin radios because the cases are shrinking from age, plus the heat from the tubes will leave burn marks, and cause stress cracks in the case to become worse.

Unfortunately the Catalin radios were just not very well designed for long term survival, with that type of plastic.

You'd be better off with a Catalin Mah-Jong game.
 

Michaelson

One Too Many
Messages
1,840
Location
Tennessee
Nothing brings a smile to my face faster than seeing a mint condition hand held AM only transister radio from the early 1960's. Took a single 9v battery, and if you were lucky, came with a leatherette case and ear plug. I can NOT tell you the countless hours in the early '60's listening to Cincinnati Reds ball games with my head under the covers at night. I've been amazed how many of those little radios I've found lately still in the box! Regards! Michaelson
 

Harry Gooch

One of the Regulars
Messages
176
Location
The North
Nothing brings a smile to my face faster than seeing a mint condition hand held AM only transister radio from the early 1960's. Took a single 9v battery, and if you were lucky, came with a leatherette case and ear plug. I can NOT tell you the countless hours in the early '60's listening to Cincinnati Reds ball games with my head under the covers at night. I've been amazed how many of those little radios I've found lately still in the box! Regards! Michaelson

Sounds like the radio I had in the 60s, listening to Jungle Jay Nelson. I believe he was one of the first DJs ever to make it into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame.

Gooch
 

Bruce Wayne

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Nothing brings a smile to my face faster than seeing a mint condition hand held AM only transister radio from the early 1960's. Took a single 9v battery, and if you were lucky, came with a leatherette case and ear plug. I can NOT tell you the countless hours in the early '60's listening to Cincinnati Reds ball games with my head under the covers at night. I've been amazed how many of those little radios I've found lately still in the box! Regards! Michaelson

Who let you out from you hole?!?!

IT is good to see your face around these parts, M
 

shortbow

Practically Family
Messages
744
Location
british columbia
That's a really great list. I own 15 of the items listed and have given other examples of most of them as gifts over the years and will do so again. Nice to see not everybody on the planet has been seduced by the latest "next best thing."

I especially like the sentiment eschewing plastic. It's the defining artifact of our "civilization", which says so much about our throw-away, obsolete before you get it material culture.
 

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