Blown Away

I went to an estate sale on Morganford near Union Saturday morning.  I had specifically gone on a quest for a replacement turntable for my 1949 Philco Console Stereo.  It's turntable was dead on arrival and I had seen a model that appeared it would fit perfectly inside.  This post is not about finding that turntable.  Alas, after rushing to the basement (always my first objective) and finding the room in which I had seen the turntable on estatesales.net, I found it was already gone.  Only a reel to reel tape recorder was left behind.  Later while looking through the rest of the basement, I saw the person who had the turntable.  He was testing it out at the only outlet in the basement.  I watched, hoping the turntable wouldn't spin so that he might put it back and I could snatch it.  I could see it was priced at a mere $3.  But it worked and he was off with it.  Like I said, this post isn't about that turntable.

I found a few other small items at the sale.  One of them was this:

It's an Oster Airjet Hair-Dryer model 202 from 1955.  I bought it for $5.  I loved it Space-age stylings.  It really does look like a jet engine, ready to blast off.  One of the other things I found cool about it is that the owner had saved all of the paper work that came with it.

I particularly liked the mini Life magazine that states, "As seen in Life Magazine."

At first I thought the pink plastic object was some sort of coverup similar to what you would wear at a barber (but not in pink, of course).  When I saw what it was, it brought back memories.

This may fall under the "sharing too much information" banner, but when I was a kid, Saturday night was hair wash night.  Back then, you didn't wash your hair as frequently as we do now.  Also back then, I had considerably more hair than I do now and therefore simple towel drying wasn't enough.  My mom had a hair-dryer that looked like a small suitcase.  When you opened it up, it had a hose that connected to the case that attached again to something akin to a shower cap.  You put the cap on your head, turned on the dryer, and it would fill the cap with hot air and you would wear it until your hair was dry.  I actually enjoyed it and would get a book to read and maybe if I was lucky, drink some hot chocolate.

At any rate, that's what the pink plastic object turned out to be.  A cap with a hose that connects to the exhaust side of this Airjet.  My kids had a good time trying it out.

It kind of reminds of Jabba the Hut's dancer from Return of the Jedi.  Or possibly a Fleshy-headed Mutant from Strange Brew.

One last note of interest.  The original owner had taken off the metal Oster nameplate (seen on the top of the dryer).  There are two screws that hold it in place.  I guess he felt it detracted from its aerodynamics.  Fortunately, he also saved that.   I found it in the box and restored it to its rightful place.