Electric Banana Ripening
THE ripening of bananas, which are cut from the trees when green, requires carefully controlled heat and humidity. A new and positive method has been devised by using electric strip heaters mounted under water pans suspended from the ceilings. The rooms in which the bananas are ripened are specially constructed, practically air tight, and with refrigerator-type doors. Thermostatic control maintains the room temperature between 60 and 75 degrees, depending on how green the bananas are when placed in the room and how soon it is desired to complete the ripening process which is from 48 to 60 hours.

Novel Door Lock Stops Gangsters
AN AUTOMATIC electric clock built for revolving doors such as are used in banks and department stores was designed by three Minneapolis inventors to thwart gangster attempts at wholesale robbery.

The device is concealed in the wall just above the axis of the door. In case of a holdup any employee can press the alarm push button. A small electric motor immediately engages notched clutches which prevent the door from turning.

Berlin Installs First Stamp Vending Machine

BERLIN postal authorities have adopted a new invention that promises to be of real help to all. The automatic stamp vending machine which can be attached to trolley wire posts will relieve a long felt need. The photograph shows a customer operating the crank that produces the stamps. How many times have letters been written, only to be carried in the pocket because there was no stamp with which to post it! The Berlin idea is very simple. Read the rest of this entry »

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Stamp Collecting For Profit

by Frank G. Stein

TO ORDINARY laymen, stamp collecting may seem like a waste of time, effort and money. But to those who have been “bitten by the bug” it is the most interesting hobby any man, woman or child can take up.

When such well-known persons as the late King George V of England, the late Arthur Hind of Utica, New York, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Queen Helena of Italy, Suzanne Lenglen, famous French tennis player, Adolphe Menjou and Clara Bow, of the silver screen, and countless other personages of world-wide fame were and are collectors, it is no wonder that this hobby is so popular with millions of Americans. Read the rest of this entry »

Shoes for Fastidious Walkers

IF YOU are a fastidious walker you will probably appreciate the unique shoe soles shown in the photo below. The design is made by the use of inlaid bits of colored leather and with studs, so that the patterns run all the way through the leather, if that means anything to you. The shoes were displayed recently at the Shoe and Leather Fair in the Royal Agricultural exhibition in Islington, England. They were held to be a masterpiece of the shoemaker’s art.

Novel “Driver-Seat Shop” for Motorists’ Convenience

SOMETHING distinctly new in the way of ideas for merchandising automotive equipment is represented in the “Driver-seat Shop,” a steel and glass display cabinet that can be placed in all filling stations for the convenience of motorists who wish to make purchases without alighting from their cars. Read the rest of this entry »

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SEEING SOUND With A Home-Made Oscillograph

by MAXWELL R. GRANT

Hooked up to the loudspeaker terminals of a radio this device converts music into rhythmic light rays.

FASCINATING mysteries of sound can be explored with a simple oscillograph made from junk-box parts. Plugged into your radio set, it will convert programs into wiggling lines of light, moving across a screen. Read the rest of this entry »

Television Shows Full Size Images
MOVING television images on a screen 10 feet square, produced beautifully clear, perfectly defined, and possessing the illusion of depth, is the latest and most amazing step in the advance of television art. This new development, accomplished by Mr. U. A. Sanabria, a Chicago television expert, enables a large crowd of spectators to view a radio performance, and heralds the day of “television theatres.” Full size images are made possible chiefly by development of a new neon arc tube and a special scanning disk.

It’s All Gold that Glitters Here

HALF of the yearly gold production of the world passes through the great refinery at Germinston, South Africa, where the photographs shown on this page were taken.

TIN CAN JEWELS
AUTHENTIC copies of European crown jewels, in tin and glass, are the hobby of Dick Stier of Bloomfield, N. J. Stier, himself of noble German descent, got on the kick watching the coronation of Elizabeth II, now has crown jewels of the czars, the Pope, German royalty—all meticulously copied in fruit can metal and junk gems.

This article is incomplete. It does not continue on page 188. In fact I looked on every page of the magazine, and the ending is nowhere to be found. Oh well.

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Amazing Vacuum Tubes May Eliminate Motors

by JAY EARLE MILLER

Based on an interview with Dr. W. R. Whitney and Associates of the General Electric Research Laboratories Scientists have accomplished the marvelous feat of literally taking nothing, sealing it in a glass tube and making it perform the tasks hitherto done by huge motors. Thyratrons, as these amazing vacuum tubes are called, may soon relegate all machinery to the junk pile. Already vacuum tubes are curing dread diseases, increasing the range of man’s senses, and saving industry huge sums.
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Richard Du Pont—Millionaire Glider Fan

ONE would expect to find a Du Pont in a Washington drawing room or on the sands at Newport; but young Richard Du Pont, son of the industrial magnate, reverses the procedure by spending a great part of his time in a workshop.

Out in the San Fernando valley, a short distance from Los Angeles, stands a small laboratory. There young Du Pont and his co-workers are daily experimenting to make the air currents safer for glider-conscious America.
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