I'm sick (again!), and so I'm reading old magazines as a comfy way to spend time. I have procured scans of 1961's magazines (that's 65 years ago!), and will share some interesting findings in this thread.
The Workbench magazine features a DIY ukulele on the cover, that sounds... incredible? I wonder if the instrument itself sounded good. We'll find out, I guess?
Aha, they're using pre-made fretboard. I imagine making a decent fretboard is probably one of the biggest challenges in making an instrument like this?
Surprised that strings and pegs were considered "difficult to obtain"
A toy house presumably large enough to fit two kids for $1? What's the inflation-adjusted price.... $10? How did they make it work? There's no way in hell I could buy a mass-produced plastic thing like that for $10 today. What...
Oh, is it like, poles and cheap printed textile? I bet it was....
Or maybe it was $100? %) Not sure. It says it was $3.98 and now just $1...
@nina_kali_nina i tracked down this thread:
>>>
Slammerworm1
6mo ago
It was a sheet of printed plastic which you draped over your kitchen table.
<<<
@bri7 @nina_kali_nina Amazing! Looks like in 1962 the FTC came down on the "Novel Mfg Company" for a number of deceptive trade practices, including ordering them to cease and desist from:
"Representing [...] by or through the use of any pictorial illustration or textual description that the product is larger or more commodious than is actually the fact."
and sanctioned them for
"Failing to disclose clearly and conspicuously that the product is not inherently or independently rigid without the addition of, or necessity for, substantial interior structural support."
😆
More chilling:
"Failing to disclose clearly and conspicuously that there is danger to children of fire or asphyxiation from the use of the product."
Nina Kalinina
Luci Bitchface Angerfoot
Gus