Clean up with a retro vacuum says Sheffield antiques expert

During our lockdown experience, the Dowse house has seen a redistribution of household chores, with my chore folio increasing to unprecedented levels.
A retro and collectible Electrolux vacuum cleanerA retro and collectible Electrolux vacuum cleaner
A retro and collectible Electrolux vacuum cleaner

I can now manufacture an edible apple crumble and make custard from scratch.

In actual fact, I could produce a whole meal now, provided scrambled eggs was an acceptable first course.

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I have also increased my vacuuming portfolio and the carpets have never looked so good.

If we had lived in Victorian or Edwardian England, vacuuming would never have been an issue because the vacuum cleaner wasn't invented until 1899 and as with all new inventions it was huge.

Early models could easily be mistaken for fire engines.

Having your house vacuumed meant ordering the vacuum cleaner, which was pulled by horses and stopped outside your door.

The nozzled hoses were then passed through the windows and the process could begin.

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This was such a novelty that people would ask there friends around to tea and everyone would sit and watch the amazing cleaner at work.

It was not long though before the Edwardians managed to significantly reduce the size of the cleaner and by the end of the First World War they were much more portable and much more common.

In the saleroom, vacuum cleaners from the Edwardian early portable period are highly prized and can realise many hundreds of pounds.

Examples from later in the century, however, are less desirable although the present fascination with all things retro has certainly encouraged this market.

Examples from the 1950s and 1960s, which were once destroyed, are now increasingly popular.

Perhaps now is the time to invest.

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