October 30, 2007

Giant Typewriter Weighs 14 Tons (Dec, 1930)

Giant Typewriter Weighs 14 Tons
A MAMMOTH typewriter—an exact duplicate of the smaller machine—standing eighteen feet high and weighing fourteen tons was recently placed on display in Atlantic City’s auditorium convention hall. The huge machine, shown in the photo below, is said to have cost $100,000 and required three years’ time in construction. All parts of the huge machine work just as in an office-size typewriter.

October 23, 2007

Studebaker Builds World’s Largest Auto — 41 Feet Long (Dec, 1930)

Sometimes you have to wonder… Just because they didn’t have photoshop doesn’t mean they couldn’t fake photos.

Studebaker Builds World’s Largest Auto — 41 Feet Long
AT THE entrance of the Studebaker proving grounds, in South Bend, Indiana, stands the world’s largest automobile—so large that an ordinary car can be placed under its hood. This mammoth car, shown above, weighs five and a half tons, and is 41 feet long—two and a half times the length of the ordinary car.

October 19, 2007

BIGGEST RADIO SET HAS FORTY TUBES (Jun, 1936)

Filed under: Radio — @ 7:46 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jun, 1936
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BIGGEST RADIO SET HAS FORTY TUBES
What is believed to be the largest and most powerful radio receiving set ever assembled is the latest achievement of a well-known Chicago radio engineer. Designed for world-wide reception on all wave lengths, the mammoth receiver has a complicated circuit which employs forty tubes. Five separate loudspeakers, operating simultaneously, cover a wide sound-frequency range, and give exceptional tonal quality. The total weight of the receiver, shown below, is 620 pounds.

September 4, 2007

BIGGEST GUITAR IS PLAYED LIKE A BASS FIDDLE (Nov, 1936)

Filed under: Music — @ 7:45 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Nov, 1936
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BIGGEST GUITAR IS PLAYED LIKE A BASS FIDDLE
Believed to be the world’s biggest guitar, this six-foot instrument, recently demonstrated in Chicago, combines the resonance of the bass fiddle and the tones of the guitar. The “Bassoguitar,” as the new instrument has been named, is played by slapping and plucking the strings like a bass fiddle.

September 2, 2007

Giant Vacuum Cleaner (Mar, 1948)

Giant Vacuum Cleaner
Largest one ever assembled is this 196-pound jumbo made for exhibition purposes. It takes a bit of pushing, but works fine according to Henry Hoover.

August 29, 2007

World’s Largest Cars (Feb, 1957)

World’s Largest Cars

Detroit still has a long way to go to catch up in size to some of the huge cars built in the past.

IF YOU think the current crop of autos emerging from Detroit is big in size, you have only to look back at some of the earlier motor vehicles which assumed truly large proportions.

As far back as 1908 a vehicle named the State Motor Coach had a 17-foot length and a huge 153.5-inch wheelbase.

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July 10, 2007

FORTY-POUND CIGAR IS VALUED AT SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLARS (May, 1924)

Sometimes a cigar is just a big-ass cigar.

FORTY-POUND CIGAR IS VALUED AT SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLARS

What is said to be one of the largest cigars ever made was shown at an eastern tobacco exposition. It was rolled from broadleaf tobacco from the Connecticut valley and is five feet in length. The value of the tobacco used is estimated at $75.

July 2, 2007

Huge Electric Lamp Globe Covers Kneeling Girl (Sep, 1938)

[Insert Sylvia Plath joke here. Everyone loves a good Sylvia Plath joke.]

Actually this is a sort of interesting post because it shows how Modern Mechanix (which changed it’s name to Mechanix Illustrated in 1938) reuses images and articles. Here is virtually the same article, though with slightly different info and a slightly crappier picture.

Huge Electric Lamp Globe Covers Kneeling Girl
DEVELOPED in the laboratories of a well known electrical products manufacturer, a new incandescent electric lamp has a globe so large that it completely encloses an average size kneeling girl, as shown above. The huge lamp is rated at 100,000 watts and has filaments of about the same diameter as an ordinary lead pencil. The large glass cup shown in the hands of the man is sealed to the lamp, forming its base. Note the standard 60-watt electric bulb in the hands of the girl demonstrator.

June 14, 2007

BRASS HORN TWELVE FEET LONG PLAYED BY SIX MIDGETS (Jan, 1924)

BRASS HORN TWELVE FEET LONG PLAYED BY SIX MIDGETS

Measuring 12 feet in length, a giant horn requires at least two men to play it, as it is so cumbersome that one person cannot carry it. Recently, at a convention in the South, six midget men were necessary to handle the instrument: one at the mouth-
piece, another at the keys, and four to support it. This huge band piece was made in Paris and brought to this country about 75 years ago.

May 19, 2007

Huge Typewriter Really Works (Nov, 1937)

Filed under: Cool — @ 8:15 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Nov, 1937
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Huge Typewriter Really Works
SO HUGE that its keys must be operated with the feet, a mammoth typewriter has been placed on exhibition at Atlantic City, N. J. One of its giant type bars is seen about to strike, above, as a champion typist dictates a challenge to rivals.

May 2, 2007

Ten-Foot FIDDLES and Two-Story HARPS (Jun, 1938)

Ten-Foot FIDDLES and Two-Story HARPS

HOBBYIST BUILDS FREAK INSTRUMENTS FOR WORLD’S ODDEST ORCHESTRA

By EDWIN TEALE

FIDDLES with three necks instead of one; a harp so large you can play it from a second-story window ; a fourteen-foot bass viol, the biggest in the world; combined harps and fiddles which require two musicians to operate—such are the musical curiosities that Arthur K. Ferris, a landscape gardener of Flanders, N. J., has produced in his spare time. Eventually, he hopes to assemble a vast oddity orchestra comprising 126 unusual instruments.

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May 1, 2007

Giant Wind Turbines (Jun, 1932)

Giant Wind Turbines

Currents in Upper Air Form Unfailing Source of Power for “Windmills” of Future

WIND, at the surface of the earth, is proverbially uncertain; but recent researches show that, a thousand feet or more above the ground, wind is comparatively steady and unfailing. This has given new life to the hope of finding a substantial source of natural power, even more universally available than water power; and the designs illustrated here have been prepared by a German engineer, Honnef, the erector of several huge radio towers. As shown here, the structure carrying the power plant would be higher than any other building man has yet been able to erect.

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