Eighty years ago, with the War in the rear view mirror, this woman needed a radio, or perhaps a home appliance, and she was calling her friendly local radio dealer, who had the foresight to make sure that she had his number handy.

She is shown on the cover of Radio Retailing, January 1946. The magazine reminds dealers that soon there would be a flood of products onto their sales floors: “Let’s forget the past. Forget the days of famine and the days of “in-the-bag” sales. Let us remember what happened in other fields. -There are plenty of cigarettes now; there are beefsteaks, metal razors, face tissues and nylons.” And soon, there would be plenty of radios.

If you were in the market for a radio in Seattle a hundred years ago today, your timing was perfect.

The radio department of the Grote-Rankin Company, Fifth Avenue and Pike Street was getting ready for the Christmas season, and the decision was to concentrate on a small number of models.  That meant that they had to make space for them, and they were offering these attractive closeout prices on many of the models they had in stock.

The lowest priced option was the Crosley Model 52, for $16.50.  It was a three-tube TRF featuring a regenerative detectors.  While it had no speaker and required headphones, that set would have been sensitive enough to pull in just about any signal.  The high-end buyer might be interested in the Radiola 160, originally $560, now on sale for only $315.  That was a top-of-the-line set featured a six-tube superheterodyne receiver, and an acoustic phonograph.  The set shared the horn between the radio and phonograph, and undoubtedly had room-filling audio.

The ad appeared in the Seattle Star, November 6, 1925.

Eighty-five years ago this month, the November 1940 issue of Popular Science showed these ideas for homemade clamps for soldering small pieces. Both use a clothespin, one with two wood screws, filed flat, and the other uses two bent nails. Either one will hold the work in place while being soldered.

Shown here is Robert Monroe, the author of the NBC drama “Rocky Gordon.” He is at the New York Central Yards at Weehawken NJ, recording the sound of locomotives and railroad yards for the sound effects to be aired.

The photo appeared 85 years ago this month on the cover of the November 1940 issue of Radio Craft.  Interestingly, one of the few references to the radio program is on the CIA website,  undoubtedly in relation to Monroe’s involvement with the  the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security command.

Seventy-five years ago, the cover of Radio and Television Retailing, October 1950, reminded retailers that there were sales opportunities in every room of the house. In addition to radio and television, many dealers carried a wide range of other electrical appliances.

Shown here on the cover of Radio Mirror, October 1945, is eleven-year-old radio actress Lorna Lynn. When this photo was published, she had already had an eight year career in radio, and was on the air five days a week. She appeared on the CBS show Danny O’Neil, and had previously been on The March of Time, Salute to Youth, We the People, Arthur
Hopkins Presents, Big Sister, American School of the Air, Here’s to Romance, and Appointment with Life.  She later appeared on the Lux Video Theatre, The Billy Rose Show, and Crime Photographer.   She passed away in Florida in 2011.

Seventy years ago, the cover of Popular Electronics, September 1955, depicted this hi-fi enthusiast and her setup. The magazine included a special audio and hi-fi section with a wealth of information on the subject.

The artist was Ed Valigursky, whose work we’ve previously seen.

For a snapshot of how much groceries cost in 1979, this ad appeared in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette on June 21, 1979.  The prices might look like a bargain, but there has been a lot of inflation since 1977.  According to this online calculator, one dollar in 1979 works out to $4.43 in 2025 dollars.

So the chicken breasts for 99 cents per pound  or eggs for 99 cents a dozen are the equivalent of $4.39 today. You could get five loaves of bread for a dollar, but that’s the equivalent of $4.43 today. For a penny less, you could get a pound of bacon, but that would be the same as $4.39 today.

If you want to see the modern prices, click on the links above to see the same product at Amazon.

What would you have for dinner if you did the shopping in 1979?

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Today marks the 70th anniversary of the invention of the portable hole. Specifically, the cartoon “The Hole Idea” was released on April 16, 1955.

The full cartoon does not appear to be available in English, but the Spanish version can be viewed here:

Sixty years ago, this lucky girl was probably one of the first on her block to have her very own transistor radio, thanks to the construction project in the December 1964 issue of Popular Electronics.

It was a superheterodyne, and pulled in stations as well or better than most portables on the market. She could even plug it into a phonograph to get loudspeaker volume.

She was able to build it herself, but she had a little secret–most of the work was already done for her. It included a pre-assembled, pre-tuned, sealed IF stage. Other than that, it required only one transistor as the local oscillator, plus a few discrete components.