On februari 17th 2018 I travelled back in time. I could feel time slowing down, as I neared Emmen. The landscape became emptier, trains drove slower, the pace of life slowed. For those who do not know the Netherlands very well: Emmen is in the North East. It is much less densely populated than Leiden, where I live. It is rural, quiet and empty.
I visited Techno Nostalgica. Techno Nostalgica is a fair for mainly old electrictronics and is organised by NVHR (Nederlandse Vereniging voor de Historie van de Radio, Dutch society for the Historie of the radio).
It was a lovely visit. I enjoyed the old equipment, the atmosphere and the people very much.
Purely old technology.
Of course I did not travel all the way to Emmen for the surroundings or the tranquility. And I was not disappointed, because there were 2 big rooms full or old technology: not only old radio’s, but also record players, lighting, film and television equipment, tape recorders, cassette players, optical equipment, and of course some old telephones.
One of the rooms had stalls parts of private collections on display and a stall where you could have your radio repaired. The other room was full of stalls with old stuff for sale. Fortunately there were some old telephones for sale, from various periods. From old wooden phones to modern plastic touch tone telephones.
The difference with the Radio flea market in Rosmalen
The annual radio flea market in Rosmalen, organised by VERON is really very different, where the emphasis is on radio equipement. I visited the radio flea market last year and wrote this blog about it. In Emmen the technology is much more varied. Also the Techno Nostalgia has hardly any new materials and equipment for sale.
Meat ball in a bun
Techno Nostalgica was very well organised. Nice stalls, well layed out. The hotel where it was held, the Hampshire hotel, however was not so good; a soulless and ugly building, a bit messy.
The assortment on offer to care for the inner man was somewhat sparce: soup, chips (fries in the USA), ham sandwhich, cheese sandwich, frikandel sandwich, croquette sandwhis, coffee, tea, soda, etc. Not exactly hipster food or modern and not very varied. I guess we’ll call it, in line with the fair, the retro-menu. De price was not retro, by the way: my meat ball in a bun and coffee set me back 6 euros.
Loot
I saw a lot of very tempting itmes, but still I did not purchase much. I did not find any must haves, but seeing what was on offer it was a real possibility.
I had to leave the nice 1920s phone behind zie FOTO, because I thought 180 euros was too much. But not everything was this expensive.
I got myself 2 nice Ericsson handsets (model 1931) for 2,50 euros each. One of them contained rare TEFAG caps! Also I found a nice bakelite door bell button, a nice external ringer from the 1950s by Siemens and a pretty pin by TESLA, the former Czech electroncs firm.
Chickens on the street
As I walked back to the train station my head was filled with images of yesteryear. I had been to a place where 100 years worth of technology had accumulated like a sargasso of equipment. And as the station slowly appeared before me, as a kind of time machine back to the present, I saw a number of chickens in a side street. And for a minute I wondered if the train home was going to be steam powered.
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