Allied electronic catalogs from the 1960s

This was the end of our greatest era of igniting the imaginative mind when Allied, Burstein Applebee, Lafayette, (The Old Radio Shack), Heathkit, and a few others offered real quality kit experiences as well as the building blocks to take us where ever we wanted or need ed to go after that! It hasn't been the same since. With what we have available today in spite of ourselves; if we could again borrow a page from the past... perhaps the light under math, science and electronics could be relit, and new generations could discover the true magic those of us with white hair (or less) lived for back then... the next catalogs of dreams and tools for the hand and mind!

Ahhhh the fun of looking back - eBay is a great source of old magazines and catalogs too. Better than watching TV - that's for sure! :-)

In 1967, my first full time job was at Allied Electronics - 100 N. Western, Chicago. (Allied Electronics was the industrial division of Allied Radio.) I started in the phone room and took orders from industrial customers. Later I was the lone industrial guy down in the store. What a fun job! I could pull stock on anything that a customer would like to see, measure, etc. It was parts paradise. I used a hardbound catalog that I could flip to the right page in 3-4 flips. We had 80,000 parts. Just as I was leaving Allied for the military in 1968, Allied was sold to the conglomerate LTV (Ling Temco Voit - jets to basketballs). LTV only kept Allied a month or so and sold them to Tandy who had a chain of leather craft stores. Thus the name is now associated with the disappointing electronics chain we have today. I just noticed that Allied Electronics is alive today in Ft. Worth, maybe some of the original genetic material is still there, but I don't know. If anyone has the Allied cover with the sputnik on it, I'd love to see it again.

What memories. I grew up in the Bronx NY. We had a Lafayette Radio store on E. Fordham Rd. When you had no money, this was walking distance! If they were out of stock, we had the main store at 100 Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. I spent a lot of time with the Allied, Lafayette and B & A catalogs, dreaming and learning. We also had the surplus stores on Radio Row (Cortlandt St.) and Canal St. I worked at one of them, Advance Electronics, from 1960-1967. The store started out on West B''way and eventually moved to Cortlandt St. By 1965 everybody moved out, either to Canal St or uptown, because we were displaced by the WTC. I too built my requisite number of Heathkits, a VTVM (with real tubes), an Oscilloscope, and after I got married, I built the Color TV. I was really saddened by the closing of Heathkit. Believe it or not, working in the surplus store gave me advanced experience credit when I took my first engineering job. Unfortunately, as a result of moves from the Bronx to Long Island, and Arizona, I have had to leave my catalogs behind. I still have my copy of TM11-690, The Army Technical Manual on Transistors- 1959 and a booklet on using the CK722 transistor also from that period. I think I still have the CK722''s. Those were truly great days for future engineers. No Internet, but we hd the catalogs!

I''ve still got a copy of the 1956 Allied catalog and it''s in very good shape. Wishing for those vacuum tube and transformer prices again! That reel-to-reel tape deck on the front of the 1968 catalog, the TD-1030, I''ve still got mine. Made with germanium transistors which aren''t the easiest things to find these days. I remember waiting for those catalogs to arrive in the mail and looking through them page by page. Burnstein-Applebee was another long gone catalog source. How about Crazy Eddie''s in New York? Used to be a lot of surplus in the ''60s and ''70s, not near as nuch today.

Our family moved to the Chicago area after WWII. I stayed until 1960 and Went to the main Allied Store many times(100 N. Western Ave. ???) Chiago also had a Lafayette store downtown. However, neither of these held a candle to the warehouses on South Michigan Ave. Which brimmed with military surplus(sold by the pound). How about 12 type 1625 tubes for $2.50 or 12 FT-243 crystals for $1 ???) Thanks for the memories.

I just came across a 1988 Heathkit catalog in my stuff. My wife said "Throw it in recycle". NO WAY!! That is history from another place and time... and never to be seen again. Bill

One publication we have today that celebrates the spirit of diy electronics and other arts is www.makezine.com. Their publication Make magazine delves into all kinds of industrial/electronic/artistic craft and is on better newstands and bookstores and NO I dont work for them.

Over the decades, whenever I have been asked, "What was your favorite book of all time," I have always replied, "the 1963 Allied Radio Catalog." The Burstein-Appleby 1962 catalog was slso terrific! Lafayette and even "Radio Shack" (pre-Tandy) were delightful as well. I too learned a LOT from these catalogs. Great idea for a column.

I was fortunate enough to grow up in Chicago and was active in Ham Radio. I saved my money from doing work for neighbors until I could buy a Knight kit Variable Frequency Oscillator. Not long after we moved to Westmont and I was treated to having Heathkit within bicycle range. As an adult I finally got to buy a Heathkit TV and then built one for my Air Force Squadron which landed me a ride in an F-4 Phantom. I feel blessed to have had companies like Allied and Heathkit to steer my career. I''ve been an engineer for 35 years now and still love it.

Having gotten into ham radio as a kid in the late 1950's, the Allied and Lafayette catalogs were dream books--from both spiritual and practical perspectives. At least as far as Lafayette went, the stores in Brooklyn and Long Island were usually out of stock continually in just about everything I needed. Placing mail orders through Allied was not much better, especially when it concerned basic parts such as tubes, resistors, and caps. These catalogs were literally wishbooks and made great bathroom reading--not much more than this, as I remember. Perhaps for a corporate customers, the pickings and customer service were better. Fortunately, for a kid from Brooklyn like me, Radio Row in lower Manhattan still existed--and it became my supply source for everything electronic. A WW-II era IFF transponder was obtainable for about five bucks with all cables, dynamotor, and stub antennas--it converted to a very simple but nice 432MC CW transceiver (rather innovative at the time). Arc 5 transmitters and receivers in a variety of HF ranges were obtainable in mint crated condition for under 3 dollars each. The list of stuff is much too large to put here. Unfortnately, Radio Row disappeared when the construction for the World Trade Center began. Still, it was like a little bit of heaven on earth.

That''s how I got my start in electronics -- reading those catalogs and hanging around with a neighbor who was a Ham. I actually collect some of these old catalogs now in my research on early television technology history (www.earlytv.com). Every time I see one I get nostalgic for "simpler times," as well as lower prices on some things. It''s interesting to see that the price of television sets didn''t change much between 1948 and 1998, though you got a LOT more with each year.

Wow, what a blast from the past! Fortunately, Allied is still encouraging youth to pursue careers in electronics and engineering today through local student engineering days. Check out more of Allied''s historical catalog covers and view the pages of the 1943 Allied Radio catalog on the Allied Facebook page at: www.facebook.com/pages/Allied-Electronics/40397383797