03-03-2022, 12:34 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-03-2022, 12:35 AM by Tony Griffiths.)
(02-03-2022, 09:29 PM)Mike Costigan Wrote: When I started work in the printing industry in the late 1960s everyone wore a shirt and tie regardless of how dirty their job was.
(03-03-2022, 12:20 AM)Tony Betts Wrote: that last picture reminds me of attending the fort dunlop auctions probably 20 or more years ago.
the main building with dunlop on the front was already finished, but the large workshops beside it were all being emptied for re-generation.
the lines of seriously heavy lathes of all types, 10 or more of the same model in situ next to each other.
the rows of 100 2 ton pullies sold fine at £10 each. easy for people to move, easy to resell. but the large 20 tone lathes etc. also being sold to the scrap man for £10 each. nobody wanting them or being able to move or store them.
exciting at the time, but it all seems a bit sad now.
tony.
Many of those big lathes and many other machine tools ended up in India and Pakistan. Some serious money was being made that way by enterprising people. One dealer friend had a dummy "testing" machine on his desk. When buyers handed over the wads of cash he took some and placed it on the glowing screen and closed the lid. "What's that for?" the buyer would enquire. "Well, as all the notes are absolutely filthy - and clearly you have not drawn them from a bank - this machine checks it for the presence of various illegal drugs. If it finds any the price of what you've bought is doubled - or I report you to the police as a drug dealer." He was only joking of course, but he said that the expressions on their faces as he tricked them was a real treat.