When Dad was made redundant from Cory-Wright & Salmon, which had purchased his workplace, Turnbull & Jones, he bought all the Grundig equipment and accessories, thinking that he would find it useful. And for a while he did. The odd one he cannibalized, while the parts were used and adapted. Cory-Wright wound up contracting him for all the servicing of Grundig office equipment—principally dictating machines—and actually wound up hiring three people after they realized all the things Dad actually did there.
He was quite happy to go to work for himself, as he picked up contracts with other firms as well. Some were companies who had gone to him at Turnbull & Jones anyway, and upon being told he had been let go, sought him out. But in the long run Grundig proved to be a fraction of what he wound up fixing, and it was the Japanese brands that I usually saw at home in his workshop, along with Philips (and no, the Japanese brands were not more reliable). Like many hard workers with a customer base, he did far better in self-employment than he did as an employee.
Which brings me to this post. You could say this cache of Grundig parts is part of my inheritance, but what to do with it? The trouble with being in New Zealand is that there’s no Ebay—we’re told to use the Australian one if we wished to sell, except none of the postal options apply—and outside these shores no one’s heard of Trade Me.
I’d like to sell the bits though I haven’t done an inventory yet. That was one of my favourite things when I visited Dad at Turnbull & Jones: he kept an inventory of all the items in his room and I used to make new ones as a fun activity. I marvelled at the new packaging that Grundig introduced, and this probably got me in to German graphic design.
Here’s one item for starters: the wall box (die Wanddose) for the central dictation system (Central-Diktat-Anlage), Typ 593. I have at least five of them, boxed. This was opened for the first time when I took the photo, between 40 and 50 years after it was packaged. That’s the original rubber band as it left the factory in Germany. Some have already been opened. I’ve microphones, foot controls, complete machines. Suggestions are welcome, especially if someone might find it all useful. Those mics are going for €12 on Ebay in Germany, and mine are new. If anyone out there ever wondered, ‘Is there a lost cache of Grundig parts out there?’ then I have your answer.
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