Finding Something Old...Something Pretty Much Useless

 When we decided to move, we didn't have a lot of time. Priority was to get the house ready...I didn't get the chance to go through all the stuff we had to see what we wanted to keep and what should go. Years ago, I packed away some things that were my dad's. Now, my dad's been gone for almost fifty years, so anything that was once his is older than that.

My wife and I were going though boxes in the garage when she came across the old army bag I used to stow away my dad's things. It had been so long since I packed it, I didn't even know what it was I packed away. I thought it was some old WWII radios, which if this had actually been the case, they would have been worth a lot of money. Turns out they were communication devices, but not WWII-aged, a little bit earlier newer.

I packed away two portable speakers built by SpinLab of Knoxville, Tennessee. 

I tried looking them up to see if they were worth anything. I can usually find unique items online. Maybe I didn't enter the right search parameters--I found nothing.

There's a possibility they still work. The one with the microphone appears to be in good shape. All I need to see is eight C batteries.

Imagine that...

Yet, for probably the cost of those same batteries I could order a modern speaker that works better, sounds better, and could run eight or nine times as long on one charge than those eight C batteries would do. Even my cellphone probably could amplify my voice better than those speakers. It's no wonder I can't find out anything about the speakers. They're so obsolete no one is even collecting the antiques.

So, why are they important?

Of course, time will tell, but there's a good chance that anything I bought to replace those speakers will never last for five decades. If I took out those speakers and put in a modern speaker or a cellphone and my son opened it up seventy years from now...well, I doubt they could get it to work.

These speakers built by SpinLab are sturdy, made to last, and last they have. Maybe they're not as useless as they seem.