Anderson 1936 catalogue

[sevenoaks]

What a fantastic post OC Richard. Thank you for your efforts. Amazing!

[Chas]

That style, Richard, would certainly flatter the man with the fuller figure. And by the look of it, could be used to show off a contrasting waistcoat to good effect.

Regards

Chas

[Mainer In Exile]

Please forgive my tardiness; I've been working with the kids to get them caught up on their schoolwork, since they started a week late. But this morning, I sat down at the scanner with a cup of coffee, and here's my undated Anderson catalogue. As I had said, the bookseller dated it as 1930; you can compare the information yourselves and see if you think it's a bit earlier than Richard's. It's definitely abbreviated in content! The light card cover faces each measure 137mm x 199mm; each page measures 133mm x 190mm. Here we go...



Let's see how that worked out. Hope you find this of interest.

Allen

[haukehaien]

"Kilt Drawers"...well, that ought to take a bit of the wind out of the sails of the commando crowd...

Not just kilt drawers - woolen TARTAN kilt drawers.

Woolen.

Tartan.

Kilt drawers.

I have two questions:
1) Where can I buy some?
2) When can we have a sub-forum dedicated to this item of traditional Highland wear?

[McElmurry]

They seem to be showing plenty of knee especially above the hose.

Show some knee boys

[English Bloke]

For anyone who is interested, the Diced Hose, advertised for sale at nineteen shillings and sixpence (£0 19'/6d) loosely equates to 97p which is roughly US$1.50 at today's exchange.

Don't all rush at once.

Britain decimalised in 1971. Prior to this the currency units were Pounds (£) Shillings (') and Pence (d), and structured as:
£1 = 20' and 1' = 12d (or 240d to £1). At decimalisation the shilling was made obsolete and Pounds and Pence (New Pence) were adopted based on a power of 10.

Conversion rates for the process still apply because it was a snap shot in time and although prices and earnings have gone up, the monetary units have not changed.

5 New Pence (5p)


was worth 1'

(or 12 old Pence and initially was the same size coin and both were interchangeable.)

1 New Pence (1p)


was worth 2.4d (2.5 give or take) so sixpence (6d) was worth about 2.5p. There is no 0.5p now, it was phased out in 1984 so best to round down.

So 19'/6d =
19x5=95 + 2.5 (-0.5 for the round down) = 97p...

With which you could buy a nice pair of Diced Hose... or a tank of fuel for your car, which makes the Hose, in the UK at least, about the same in real terms as they are now. (at current UK fuel and diced sock prices).

Fab catalogue by the way... thanks for posting that.

Now then!! Of course times were harder then...

... "Well we 'ad it tough. We used have t' get up out o't' shoebox in't middle o't' night, and LICK road clean wit' tongues. We had half 'andful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at t' mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife."...

"you try and tell that t' young people o' today ... and they won't believe ya'.



Anyone who has proper knowledge to the contrary and wishes to refute the above findings, or my pronunciation of the word shilling, do please feel free to do so.

[creagdhubh]

They seem to be showing plenty of knee especially above the hose.

Show some knee boys

Well, that's how it's supposed to be done, mate.

Cheers,

[Downunder Kilt]

What" with this shilling John? We had tuppence, a trey, a zac, a deena, two bob and a quid. And you reckon you had it hard, we had to do the same as you except for getting up in the middle of the night. We to get up a half hour before we went to bed

[English Bloke]

Oh there was other coinage too... farthin's (1/4d), hay'pnnies (1/2d), pennnies (1d), thrupny bits (3d - we know some rhyming slang for that one don't we Johnnie), sixpnce (6d), shillin' (1'), two-bob bit (2'). ten-bob note (10') an' finally, a quid (£1). Then there were fivers, tenners and I don't suppose you're average chap saw much bigger notage than that unless he won on the horses.

It is quite amazing how prices appear to have increased so dramatically in a relatively short space of time. Although I think the point is, 'tis all relative to increased income so in real terms it's no change really. It's always been very expensive. Average annual income in Britain in the 30's (for those who were working) was £200 per annum give or take, so your socks would be 0.5% of that. For convenience sake, if we take the current UK average as £30,000 (it's actually less than that but hey, who's counting... it's only a game?) If you were to spend 0.5% of your average annual now on a pair of Diced Hose they would be £150 (Ahemm hemm).

Other sources and prices are available... But these fit my argument nicely so I'm stickin' wi' them. Now't like bendin' figures to suit... Not that I've bent any figures. 'tis all there in black n' white.

Like I said before I upped and offed on a tangent. Lovely catalogue. See? I should have said that in the first place and saved us all this pondering.

[John_Carrick]

One could wear a kilt on occasions other than special ones I note, in fact a wedding was when you really went to town with the finery.
I liked the way someone stamped on it that the prices were obsolete, just in case.....
At more than a pound in the prices of these times kilt drawers were a bit dear.
Thank you for sharing this.
John