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Our Great-Grandparents’ Inventions
The GPS or the Thermomix seem quite modern, but they are not that contemporary. Their first clear ancestors date back to the first decades of the 20th Century |
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 1920’s GPS |
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Many devices which make our lives much easier, come from ideas conceived in the days of yore. Although it’s true to say that they’ve been much improved, but back in the 19th Century there were people dedicated to create intriguing thingamabobs with the intention of solving everyday problems. Many of them kept evolving and all of us have one at home.
Maurice Collins is a British man, a retired businessman, who has an amazing valuable collection made up of over one thousand four hundred historical gadgets. Here we introduce you to some of them. You we’ll see how what now looks like a real novelty some times it is not such a new thing.
1920’s GPS
This sort of wrist watch is quite a primitive predecessor of the GPS; navigation systems couldn’t have been invented overnight. It takes them lots of hard work to recalculate the route, but it does never run out of batteries.
Food Processor from the beginning of the 20th Century
Don’t you think it does look like the great-grandmother of today’s food processors? Actually, that’s what it really is, the old times food processor. A mechanical one nonetheless. Just add electricity and it would be the spitting image of your mother’s Thermomix.
Moustache protector
Moustaches have their supporters, despite the odd inconvenience when eating and drinking. Food can unsightly stick to the moustache, and when drinking tea some moustache hairs could unwillingly dive into the cup. The solution comes with a tea cup and spoon featuring a moustache protector.
Pistol purse
You never know when you will be needing to pull out a gun, so it’s best you take it always with you, anyway, please keep it discreet!
19th Century toilet bowl
Here you are, the great-great-grandfather of our modern toilet. It dates back to 1870 and was manufactured by Mr. Jennings, a sanitary engineer and plumber who invented the first public toilets which he installed at The Great Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde Park, London.
Maybe some of them were left behind, but they’re all rather ingenious.
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 (2 Sep 2008)
(2 Sep 2008)
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(2 Sep 2008)
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