Old Allied catalogs

[Enzo]

I was looking for something, and found these. I love old catalogs, a lot of parts we run into are long gone from catalogs, but your 1965 amp will have parts from the 1965 parts catalog, I'd wager. Covers 1929 through 1981. I think it is fascinating.

Many years have two catalogs. The "for everyone" ones include all the Knight Kit stuff and consumer goods. The industry catalog is just parts, like modern Allied or Mouser or Digikey books.

Allied Radio & Electronics Catalogs

[tedmich]

Cool stuff Enzo! I just sent an order in for 50 RCA 12AX7s at the $1.18 price!
I hope this address still works:

1950 Allied Radio Corp.
833 W. Jackson Blvd.
Chicago 7 Illinois

[Leo_Gnardo]

Cool stuff Enzo! I just sent an order in for 50 RCA 12AX7s at the $1.18 price!

For payment, better send silver certificates, no federal reserve notes.

[Mick Bailey]

When I look through those old copies it strikes me what a land of plenty America was compared to the UK. Right into the 1950s we still had food rationing left over from the war. Domestic industrial production was geared towards export in an attempt to bolster the county's finances. Imports were strictly limited and attracted high taxation and tariffs.

I don't think there's a UK equivalent of Allied or Lafayette. Probably RS Components was the closest in component terms. Even looking back through a 1923 copy of the Sears Catalog makes me think what a tremendous resource there was in mail order. You could even buy your colonial-style home from there.

[Richard]

It's amazing how much easier things are with the internet. I remember ordering bike parts from catalogs when I was a kid.

[Enzo]

I used to get the huge catalogs from Sears and Penneys. I ordered stuff from them too. Even though I had their stores nearby. In the old days, those catalogs WERE the internet. Every kid waited in anticipation for the Xmas issues to arrive. We could then look at all the toys we wished we had.

I am sure it was WAY more difficult in the UK. Here in the USA, we paid a price for the war mainly in our sons who never came home, and economic hardship. But nothing ever flew over and destroyed our infrastructure, nothing bombed our bridges or homes. Our great expanse was full of natural resources, and our industrial capacity was huge.

[Mick Bailey]

And how long did it take mail-order stuff to arrive? You sent the order with payment (and if it was a personal cheque it would have to clear) and over here at least, every mail-order company stated 'Please allow 28 days for delivery'. Nowadays we expect something ordered on the web to turn up next day, or maybe the day after. I order stuff from China or Thailand and it sometimes arrives in less than a week.

There was a big rise during the 1960s in the UK in mail order catalogue shopping - everything from a shotgun to a laundry basket. They got thicker every year, and the lingerie section got more 'adult' with each issue. Every schoolboy's favourite.

[Leo_Gnardo]

And how long did it take mail-order stuff to arrive? You sent the order with payment (and if it was a personal cheque it would have to clear) and over here at least, every mail-order company stated 'Please allow 28 days for delivery'.

Depending on company, shipping could be surprisingly fast, or not. I used to order from a surplus company near Boston, PolyPaks. (I'm sure some here will remember them.) They didn't make you wait for a check to clear, just sent the stuff. I'm sure their stock didn't cost them much. If they got a bouncer, part of the cost of doing biz, and banks didn't wack them with a $40 fee either. Maybe a dollar or two penalty back then. The reputation they got for fast order filling and cheap cheap parts more than made up for it. Some folks sent cash, and you could buy a US Post Office Money Order if you needed to seal the deal quick with anybody - no check clearing time with those. McGee Radio in Kansas City was another source, they had all the Eminence speakers of the time plus other goodies of all sorts.

Big companies like Sears Roebuck & Monkey Warts let you have an "account" early on, and COD = Cash on Delivery was another standard method. You could phone in an order too, save a couple days over sending by mail. REA (Railroad Express Agency, prior to UPS) truck shows up, a card on the box shows the charge and serves as receipt, pay the man, done. "Revolving credit" aka credit cards started to ease the system by late 60's, charge cards were standard by mid 80's, after that COD was scarcely seen much to the relief of delivery route drivers.

[Mark Hammer]

When I used to babysit as a teen, one of the families I sat for the husband was an EE. Apart from the odd Playboy I would stumble onto, the best part of those gigs was the stack of Allied, Lafayette, and Heath catalogues that he had.

I still have a bunch of RS catalogues from the past 25-30 years.

[Enzo]

Oh I loved every new Lafayette catalog. I'd study it and mark all the pages of stuff I like to have. Test leads, test equipment, some radio kit, or antenna booster kit, or tools or or or ...

COD was common back then. I could mail in an order or call it in, and COD meant the bill was considered paid. If I refused shipment when it arrived, I am sure I'd get on a list. But parts came reasonably soon.

I do remember poly paks.

Most catalog houses had stock and shipped when you ordered. Ordering from TV ads or magazines was different. Those often said 6-8 weeks for delivery. But what they were doing was waiting to pool all their orders, and fill them at one setting. Just like today I might agree to order some part from Fender for a guy, but wait until I had amassed what I consider a minimum order before placing with Fender.

[Mick Bailey]

We used to get a lot of industrial tool and equipment catalogues. A company would send one and follow up with a rep calling to take an order. Most of the stuff was astronomically priced and if you bought anything at all the rep would live on your doorstep until you bought something else. I guess the cost was heavily loaded to take commission into account. Some of those reps called for years and were like old friends. How they made a living out of sitting drinking tea escaped me.

They used to target apprentices, perhaps with the same reasoning that children are targeted to nag their parents into shelling out. One catalogue I used to drool over specialized in those large tool-sets, usually Xcelite. Sometimes in alloy cases that looked like they were made by Airstream. I used to occasionally see them in the hands of the A-list celebrity engineers who got flown around the world to troubleshoot. It's funny though that when I got into a position where I could buy that stuff, I wasn't interested.

When I look though old catalogues and prices, I sometimes run them through an on-line inflation calculator to see what they come to in today's money. Sometimes it can be a real eye-opener how expensive certain things were - especially at the cutting edge of home entertainment.

[pdf64]

When I look through those old copies it strikes me what a land of plenty America was compared to the UK. Right into the 1950s we still had food rationing left over from the war. Domestic industrial production was geared towards export in an attempt to bolster the county's finances. Imports were strictly limited and attracted high taxation and tariffs...

The WWII and Land-Lease war debt left the UK pretty much bankrupt. The 1946 Anglo-American loan, and currency devaluation put the UK into deep austerity for a couple of decades. That was the price of freedom, and the NHS.
Finally paid off under Blair / Brown.
At least we had a few years in the black, notionally at least; the hidden debt, due to Blair / Brown's PFI deals to fund infrastructure, was / is making the projects it facilitated ever more unaffordable.
Yet government carries on with PFI to fund big stuff because the National Audit Office was been cowed into leaving it out of the stats for government debt.
Oh dear.

I wish I'd kept just one of those old slimline RS catalogues from the early 80s, when I started with this stuff; but yes, stuff back then can seem expensive when looking back with today's perspective.