Woowoo of Edmund Scientific days past

[kookbreaker]

Randi states in this week's commentary:


Well, Norm is no longer connected with the company, which has leased out its name to other outlets, and essentially lost the pioneering attitude of the original organization. A company known as “Edmund Scientifics” – note the attached “s” – is currently advertising quack devices and systems, a fact that got the attention of Mr. Calder. He wrote to them:

It does please me to find out that Norman Edmund and Randi know each other. However, this comment is a bit disingenuous.

The Scientifics division of Edmund Scientific has been 'mostly clean' of quack products for some time, but let's not pretend the field was always clean. The Edmund catalog of Norman's era was scientificly innovative and incredible, but it also was rather prone to some rather oddball stuff that should have raised any skeptic's eyebrows. A brief glance through the supply of Edmund catalogs of yesteryear reveal the following products in stock: Zodiac Kits, Tarot Card kits and lessons, Kilrian Photography set, Zenner Cards, ESP testing Kits, Crystal Balls, UFO books and slide sets, and Pyramid power kits.

In fairness, most of these things went out of the catalog as the company moved towards optics development. And it would never have taken on such a serious quack device. But still...

[Frogberto]

I have no idea if this is true or not, but if true, ... good point.

[Hamradioguy]

It does please me to find out that Norman Edmund and Randi know each other. However, this comment is a bit disingenuous.

The Scientifics division of Edmund Scientific has been 'mostly clean' of quack products for some time, but let's not pretend the field was always clean. The Edmund catalog of Norman's era was scientificly innovative and incredible, but it also was rather prone to some rather oddball stuff that should have raised any skeptic's eyebrows. A brief glance through the supply of Edmund catalogs of yesteryear reveal the following products in stock: Zodiac Kits, Tarot Card kits and lessons, Kilrian Photography set, Zenner Cards, ESP testing Kits, Crystal Balls, UFO books and slide sets, and Pyramid power kits.

In fairness, most of these things went out of the catalog as the company moved towards optics development. And it would never have taken on such a serious quack device. But still...

Maybe someone can write the definitive history of this company. When I was a kid I lived in Penna. but Edmund was perhaps an hour away and when I got into astronomy and optics I remember several trips there in the early to mid-1950s. No Zodiac kits, crystal balls, UFO books or the like were to be found back then. Just bins and bins filled with lenses, mirrors, prisms, and related military stuff from WWII and the Korean War. I remember buying a prism that was part of a tank periscope. Cost something like 50 cents or so. They also had plenty of low end telescopes and telescope parts- My Mom footed the bill for a 6 inch mirror, mirror cells and some other parts which I turned into a nifty homemade Newtonian reflector. (Still have it, although it's now gathering dust in a corner of my basement.)

Edmund Scientific may have lost it's way at some point, but early on it never had any woo-woo stuff.

[kookbreaker]

Early on in its history, it was called the Edmund Salvage Company. In the middle 50's it changed to Edmund Scientific. At that time, there wasn't much woo in the company's selection because there wasn't much woo in the US at that time. Sure, there was goofy stuff, but could you find a Geller of the time? Nope. All this stuff started appearing in the late 60's catalogs as that whole 'Age of Aquarius' hoodoo started to have its charm on the world. The stuff really kicked in during the 70s when Chariots of the Gods and Pyramidiocy were in full swing. It was a tough time for the company, however, as it was between the eras when the Baby boomers were too old to have the time and resources to buy science stuff, and their kids were nto old enough (if they had any) to be interested in it yet. The economy of the 70s was pretty awful as well: inflation, recession, malaise. The company went near bankrupt, and it was noted that the raw optics sold very well, followed by telescopes (which sold well but had low margins) followed by the woo stuff (which was cheap as dirt and made lots of moeny), then much of everything else. It was decided to move the company towards professional optics production. They already had lens & mirror grinders in place for telescope making, so the shift wasn't that hard. As they moved into the 80's a few other retail fields were tried (and failed) before the decision was made to drop the woowoo stuff from the catalogs. It was one thing to have science toys next to the Achromats & prisms, it was another to have some Pyramid kit sitting there. A lot of other stuff that was a little less 'woo' but was still kind of unproved stuff went away as well (Rolamite kits, anyone?). It turned out to be a good move as computers, Voyager, and foriegn telescope lines very effectively devastated the Edmund Telescope market.