The Way We Were

[Innesfan]

I was tidying my desk and found this in a stack of stuff. It was gifted to me my last birthday: the 1955 catalogue from the legendary Aquarium Stock Co whose NYC store lasted from 1910 to the early 1980s while its second location on Beverly Blvd in Los Angeles, CA lasted a bit longer. I visited both often depending on which coast I found myself. The reason why the NYC store has two addresses is that it ran the length of an entire city block from Warren to Murray streets, downtown. It was Mecca. Here are a few of the 60 pages in the catalogue. You'll recognize most of the species on the cover, I'm sure. The Nannostomus are N. harrisoni, common in those days, a rarity now.

 

[connorlindeman]

Interesting to read this knowing that $10 in 1955 is approximately equivalent to $118.20 in 2025, in terms of purchasing power.

 

[emeraldking]

I love those old books and magazines... Better than the nowadays ones...

 

[TwoTankAmin]

The equipment sure has gotten better with time. In the 1950s my dad put a small tank in the entrance foyer of the house, It ran an air powered box filter filled with fiberglass. I do not remember the fish. but I do remember it was a slate bottom tank with chrome frames and had a light over it. I was very young, but it struck me as being very small. I am thinking under 10 gallons.

My first tanks was in the 1970s. I shared a place with 3 partners in the sound company. So it was a community owned tank. We were all pretty ignorant re fish keeping back then. It was over 25 years later that I got my first tank in Jan. 2001.

My first fish came from the fish department of a local pet store. over the next 25 years I bought very little from shops. I sourced my fish elsewhere.

 

[Innesfan]

I do not remember the fish. but I do remember it was a slate bottom tank with chrome frames and had a light over it. I was very young, but it struck me as being very small. I am thinking under 10 gallons.

That's an interesting and, in my experience, fairly unique response. I have found most of us as kids remember things to be larger than we find them to be as adults. Perhaps it is relative based on our individual experience. Our first slate-bottomed, metal-framed 10 gallon seemed huge to me after having only had the experience of a 5 gallon tank and 2 gallon drum bowl previously. And when our first 20g arrived, well, I though it was a swimming pool.

 

[GaryE]

Any time you get into catalogues of past objects in any domain, it's entertaining.

It is the way 'we' were, even if that we wasn't born yet. What we have tech-wise is far better, even if it's disposably built. I've seen the Aqua Stock Deluxe Air Pump in operation, and it barely worked. It didn't produce much air, and while it was very well made, it was not a loss when it was replaced.

We'll never go back to an economy where the visible customer is more important than the invisible shareholder. Well made equipment lasts too long, and doesn't need to be rebought.

When I was young I had this interest in talking to old people, and had friends sometimes forty or fifty years older than me. Some were aquarists, and from them, I got the impression tat at the start, this was was a hobby for the rich. In time, especially after WW2, it became a working class hobby, as the price of equipment fell and air cargo allowed for cheaper fish. Now, I think we're at one of many crossroads. It'll be interesting to see where we go.

When I was in my 30s, we had a club member in his mid nineties who brought in a box from his basement. He had run a fish store and had had cutting edge tech. It was a lot of fun to set up the equipment and watch it work. Air pumps produced one bubble a second...

 

[Innesfan]

It is the way 'we' were, even if that we wasn't born yet.

Sure, rub it in.