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.
