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One for future social historians

Sunday, November 26th, 2006
1 Comment

Sometimes it’s the little things in life that make me think why? Today I needed a new kitchen timer. I didn’t want anything fancy. I didn’t want to spend a lot of money. I went round several shops in my search while doing other shopping. What I discovered on this micro Odyssey is that there are basicly four kinds of kitchen timers:

  1. Retro – Like Regular but in a 50s, 60s or 70s style
  2. Regular – Call a Spade a Spade looks like a kitchen timer
  3. Electric – Battery operated thus not really very eco friendly
  4. Novelty – Fruit and Vegetable mostly

I’ve listed them in order of price from most expensive to least expensive. What I can’t explain is why Novelty shapes should be cheaper. They use more material. They probably need more effort to design, package and ship yet they are by far the cheapest. Was there a great novelty timer price crash in the 90s that I missed? Are there warehouses full of novelty timers (next to the ones with the European Free Nelson Mandella T-Shirts mountain)?

Makes no sense to me but maybe some future academic will get a good paper out of the topic.

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One Response to One for future social historians

darkdwarf Wednesday, November 29th, 2006

Perhaps it's a fashion thing?

Here's some alternative uses for your kitchen timer once you've made your purchase.

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