[SEL] O.T. Quality over the years

[Frank DeWitt]

It is clear that you can make more money selling something cheep and 
selling a lot of them, then selling a few for a lot.  There are just 
a lot more people with a little money then with a lot of money.  what 
is not cleat to me is why manufacturers, or consumers, at one tome 
thought extra pin striping, fancy castings, ETC were necessary.

I have a few Pelton compressors and I have seen many others.  These 
would have been used in the basement or back room of a dentist 
office, and were inside a sheet metal enclosure. The early ones have 
ornate flywheels, gold pin striping, fancy castings knurled nuts for 
electrical connection,  All this is gone on the later ones.

It seems that either people used to associated these things with 
quality, and later didn't,
or when they first came out they were expensive and therefor people 
expected the extras, as price went down, less was expected.

Frank