Products That Have Gotten Better Over Time

MondoFW · May 6, 2018

"They don't make 'em like they used to" is something you'll hear often, and most of the time it holds true to whatever it's being applied to. One big reason we like the Golden Era so much is because items were typically made to last, and no one expected to replace things 6 months after they were purchased. Due to globalization and other factors, many companies do not use as great construction and detail as they used to in their products.

But can anyone think of commodities that have actually gotten now (better detailing and construction), compared to the Golden Era? I can't really think of anything on the top of my head.

LizzieMaine · May 6, 2018

A car engine will usually go up to 200,000 miles today without major mechanical attention required. An engine in the Era was ready for a valve job not much past 50,000. The modern car body, however, will usually be destroyed by rust, if you live in a climate where road salt is used, well before the engine hits 200,000.

MondoFW · May 6, 2018

LizzieMaine said:
A car engine will usually go up to 200,000 miles today without major mechanical attention required. An engine in the Era was ready for a valve job not much past 50,000. The modern car body, however, will usually be destroyed by rust, if you live in a climate where road salt is used, well before the engine hits 200,000.

I have a knack for vintage cars, and always thought that older cars were more prone to rust because they're usually comprised of heavy-duty steel?

LizzieMaine · May 6, 2018

Around here, where the roads are saturated with calcium chloride six months of the year, all cars rust out fast -- with postwar-era cars it was the body panels, with modern cars it's the undercarriage. My last two cars have both corroded to the point where they weren't repairable at about 145,0000 miles.

I own a 1941 car that went thru a restoration in the 1970s after spending thirty years as a daily driver in Nova Scotia. It had, judging from the amount of putty on the body, a horrendous amount of body rust, but the frame is still solid. I get the sense from this that a prewar car had a better quality of body work than postwar cars -- the 1950s and 1960s cars we owned when I was growing up had significant holes in the bodies after less than a decade on the road, and one of these, a 1961 Chevrolet, was completely friable around the back finders. I used to go out and pull whole chunks off the car and crumble them in my fingers when I was mad at my mother. The car was only seven years old at the time.

That said, though, a modern car requires far less maintenance and upkeep than a vintage car -- but when the modern car does require work, it's far more expensive.

2jakes · May 6, 2018

MondoFW said:
But can anyone think of commodities that have actually gotten now (better detailing and construction), compared to the Golden Era? I can't really think of anything on the top of my head.

Off the top of my head and mostly because of my annual physical
coming up this Monday, this comes to mind:

The needle!

I'm talking about hypodermic needle injections long before you were born.

They were painful!
To this day I do not feel comfortable when they stick me with that needle to draw blood.
I know it's not painful, but it is very difficult time when I had bad experiences beginning since age 6 in elementary and in my teens in the military with more needles on both arms prior to shipping out. Rookie officers learning about dentistry when applying those frigging novocaine shots.

"They don't make 'em I'm like they used to!"

And I am one happy puppy because of this!

St. Louis · May 6, 2018

I actually walked around the house after reading this question in an effort to find any object or product that is better now. I do think that some heat-producing appliances are safer now, but certainly not more durable. I've burned through half a dozen irons in my adult life. My old early 1940s Good Housekeeping iron is still in perfect shape.

A few things are maybe a little more convenient. The last modern appliance I still use is my coffee maker, which begins brewing at 5:15 a.m. That is when I have to get up, and believe you me, at that hour I don't have the gumption to wait for my beautiful 1930s percolator to make coffee.

I do believe that some modern cosmetics are probably better or safer, but many are not. Pond's cold cream still exists, but has unpronounceable ingredients that some people say are carcinogenic. The original rose-scented cold cream had 7 ingredients that everyone recognized.

2jakes · May 6, 2018

Very limited!

No limits!

When car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, getting lost,
I can count on my iPhone.
But best of all is keeping in touch with my Fedora friends.

MondoFW · May 6, 2018

2jakes said:
Very limited!
View attachment 117610
No limits!
View attachment 117612

When car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, getting lost,
I can count on my iPhone.
But best of all is keeping in touch with my Fedora friends.

I was thinking more like what WAS and is still around to see how it compared. I should have specified because digital tech is a given.

2jakes · May 6, 2018

MondoFW said:
I was thinking more like what WAS and is still around to see how it compared. I should have specified because digital tech is a given.

Along those lines I would classify roads.

In my neck of the woods we have two lane dirt roads which are still in use and are very reminiscent of the "golden era".
I am comfortable driving my 1946
GM truck when I go to nearby towns.
I mostly do this when I am not pressed
for time.
Otherwise I will choose the freeways.

If you are referring to household or food products or things of that nature, one
thing that comes to mind is Ovaltine!
It was around in the golden era...still
around... but the flavor today sucks!

drmaxtejeda · May 6, 2018

2jakes said:
Off the top of my head and mostly because of my annual physical
coming up this Monday, this comes to mind:

The needle!
View attachment 117592
I'm talking about hypodermic needle injections long before you were born.

They were painful!
To this day I do not feel comfortable when they stick me with that needle to draw blood.
I know it's not painful, but it is very difficult time when I had bad experiences beginning since age 6 in elementary and in my teens in the military with more needles on both arms prior to shipping out. Rookie officers learning about dentistry when applying those frigging novocaine shots.

"They don't make 'em I'm like they used to!"

And I am one happy puppy because of this!

I am a dentist, and the effectiveness of the anesthetic itself is far superior. The restorative materials and techniques are better as well.

Sent from my LG-H870 using Tapatalk

Fading Fast · May 6, 2018

TVs, IMHO, are insanely better. Growing up in the '60s and '70s, TVs cost several hundred dollars (which translates into several thousands of dollars today) had smaller screen sizes, where in giant boxes that took up a lot of room vis-a-vis the screen size and broke regularly (and repairs weren't cheap).

TVs today cost several hundred dollars (away from the "must have" and "latest and greatest") - basically about 80% less in constant dollars than they did fifty years ago - have a much better picture and - both my experience and industry statistic argue - break infrequently and last a long time (can't say longer, but the repairs-to-longevity equation is in their favor). And the entire TV is not much bigger than the screen itself.

So, today, TVs are much, much cheaper, have a much better picture, break down much less frequently and are - space-wise - much more efficient.

LizzieMaine · May 6, 2018

To micro-focus the electronics question I'd suggest that what's really improved are the individual components, especially capacitors. These were always the weak point in any electronic device -- the paper-dilectric rolled foil capacitor packed into a wax-dipped cardboard tube was extremely vulnerable to moisture and humidity, and though designers tried many gimmicks to get around this, like potting the capacitors in tar-filled enclosures, or later on, sealing them in plastic tubes, they never really solved it until the coming of the modern polyester or mylar dilectric cap, which is infinitely better and more reliable than any form of paper cap. No matter how tightly you seal it, paper will eventually break down just from its own internal chemical nature. Polyester and mylar are far better materials for such a use because they're chemically inert and don't break down over time.

Some modern capacitors are poorly-made and do fail. But *all* paper capacitors will eventually fail, and good practice among people who restore old electronics requires that they all be replaced with modern caps. I've long since done this with all my old electronics, and have to do very little maintenance on them as a result.

1mach1 · May 6, 2018

I would say cameras. While I still shoot with my 35mm, I really love my Canon 5D Mk3.

HudsonHawk · May 6, 2018

Electronics and automobiles are the obvious ones. They are orders of magnitude better in quality, reliability, and affordability today than in the Era. Many things have options that are just as good in quality, but come at a higher price than standard stuff because...well, we've sort of demanded cheaper products. Things like hand tools come to mind. Sure there are cheap ones out there, but the high quality ones are just that, will last a lifetime and are better than what was available then.

And catcher's mitts. I'd hate to have to use the mitt that Mickey Cochrane used.

HanauMan · May 6, 2018

Books......

Books are different today than they were in the late 19th / early 20th centuries. The paper is thinner, and optically whiter, than vintage ones; more pages in a book now compared to a similar sized vintage book. The illustrations and photo quality is much better, too. Books now are of a better quality and don't fall apart as much as older tomes, even old quality hardback editions. However, the vintage books had a certain pleasant aroma that modern books just don't have.

2jakes · May 6, 2018

I love golden age comics especially early
drawn images of Batman, Superman or
Wonder Woman. These characters are still around, but todays comics are too slick for my taste.

HanauMan · May 6, 2018

2jakes said:
I love golden age comics especially early
drawn images of Batman, Superman or
Wonder Woman. These characters are still around, but todays comics are too slick for my taste.

Yeah, I hear you.

I was (still am, actually) a big of Carl Barks stories in the classic Disney comics (Donald Duck & Scrooge McDuck shorts and, especially, the longer adventure stories). In the late 1980s Don Rosa took over the writing of adventure stories but, somehow, they weren't the same. Too many modern gags and subject matters. Gave up reading the modern tales. Goodness knows who does the stories nowadays.

GHT · May 6, 2018

Fading Fast said:
TVs, IMHO, are insanely better.

That may be so but why is setting them up so difficult? I either need a degree in quantum physics or the help of next door's 14 year old kid.

In my grandmother's day the radio was known as a wireless, granny let me have her 1922 Ferguson, it's valve driven and takes about 30 or so seconds to warm up before it plays, but the clarity of reception is amazing.
And although 2jakes likes the modern phones over the older landline type, I still have the first phone that we had 50 years ago. It too has a clarity that belies it's age.

LizzieMaine · May 6, 2018

As far as a radio goes, it depends on what you're using it for. A typical middle-of-the road RCA or Philco model of the 1930s, recapped and set up with a proper antenna, will right now outperform, both reception and sound-wise, any AM radio of the last forty years, with the possible exception of some of the higher-end audiophile receivers of the 1970s. But few people listen to AM radio anymore, and those that do put "quality" pretty low on the list of priorities.

For that matter, a name-brand "hi-fi" FM receiver of the 1950s or early 1960s will outperform many of the modern units -- but the audience for FM radio is dwindling as well, and few people care about buying a good radio to receive it.

A modern "phase lock loop" shortwave receiver is generally better and more reliable than a vintage shortwave set when it comes to picking out faint signals, but the audio quality is inferior.

I think that principle of "what do you want to use it for" applies to any of these comparisons. Comparing an old-style telephone with a smartphone is apples-n-oranges. If you want to use a phone to go on the internet, take photos, buy crap, and allow your whereabouts to be monitored at all times by outside entities, well, a smartphone is going to do that a lot better than anything Ma Bell ever came up with. But if you don't want "dropped calls" and want to be able to at all times understand the person on the other end of the line, an old Western Electric phone connected to a copper landline is the superior choice.

Fading Fast · May 6, 2018

GHT said:
That may be so but why is setting them up so difficult? I either need a degree in quantum physics or the help of next door's 14 year old kid.

In my grandmother's day the radio was known as a wireless, granny let me have her 1922 Ferguson, it's valve driven and takes about 30 or so seconds to warm up before it plays, but the clarity of reception is amazing.
And although 2jakes likes the modern phones over the older landline type, I still have the first phone that we had 50 years ago. It too has a clarity that belies it's age.
View attachment 117695 View attachment 117696

What Lizzie, a post above, says about radio. Kidding aside, while I do not have a tenth of her knowledge, my ear says '30s - '50s radio sets are better than pretty much everything that came since, barring, as she notes, the audiophile high-end stuff.

But for mass produced radios, it's the '30s-'50s for me. They have a strong, room-filling resonance that feels more natural than modern good radios like Bose or Tivoli (which are decent - of the two, I like Tivoli better - but their sound feels "engineered" to me and not organic as do the '30s - '50s radios).

As to the TV setup issue, I hear ya, but that is an internet / interface issue where there are many digital this and thats needing setup, etc. Makes it harder to get started (and, sometimes, needs tweaking), but is not, in my opinion, a reflection on the sets, but the delivery methodology.

Products That Have Gotten Better Over Time

MondoFW

Practically Family

LizzieMaine

MondoFW

Practically Family

LizzieMaine

2jakes

I'll Lock Up

St. Louis

Practically Family

2jakes

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MondoFW

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2jakes

I'll Lock Up

drmaxtejeda

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Fading Fast

LizzieMaine

1mach1

HudsonHawk

I'll Lock Up

HanauMan

Practically Family

2jakes

I'll Lock Up

HanauMan

Practically Family

GHT

I'll Lock Up

LizzieMaine

Fading Fast

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