what made you like ceiling fans so much?8-)

[thefanman84 "Elder Moss"]

i always wanted to asks this question to ceiling fans collectors. i started liking fans at the age of 3. i can remember going in the bedroom at someone house and i saw a brass fan with four light on it going fast. i don,t know what it was but i guess thats when it started. when i was about 4 or 5, i would like tho go to kmart and go to the fans section. i remeber seeibg evergos,smc. and cec and i belive hunter. walmart,sears, west and hillbeanan was the stores i like to go see fans in. i used to get the monthy book of sale and color the fan in the book. i remeber it was halloween 1989, we knocked on a door and when it opened i saw a s.m.c. emperor bright brass with fours light and i asked the lady you got your ceiling fan from kmart huh? and my aunt was like trick or treat? and the lady laugh and said she did. i knew my fans back then. of couse when i was real young, i thought a blender fan and fascos were hunters cause they had square tip blades lol!!! ;D

[Christian C.]

for me, it was alot of things. i think the main influence was from the gulf coast victorian knockoffs that my grandmother had in her house, they were so cool. unfortunately she moved out in 2001

[Christian C.]

here is a similar model, in fact, the canopy is the same: www.dansfancity.com/products/renaissance.htm

[Deleted]

In the mid 80s my dad installed a 42" Cool Breeze hugger in our dining room, 5 cane blades. I already liked fans at this point as I remember wishing he had installed something cooler i.e. GE vents. However, prior to this point I dont recall where I'd seen them. Probably in various shops around town and family's homes. A house down the block had a K63 Zephyr I still love.

[Deleted]

Another good point, i always circled the fans in the Sunday ads.

[Louis]

When I was about 2 or 3, my family started going to the Silver Dollar City amusement park in Branson, Missouri. There, I saw many ceiling fans, and at this point became intrigued with them. I didn't know any brands at the time, but I always enjoyed going to that place because there were so many cool fans. Not that I didn't enjoy the rest of the amusement park, but the cool ceiling fans were my favorite part.

To name a few fans at SDC, there were: Fasco 1st gen. Charlestons; Lasko or Emerson TOCs (I don't remember which); Litex Signet Deluxe footprint vent fans (I was crazy about these); Emerson galore: blenderfans, Casablanca designer series, 1896s; as well as some Hunter Comfort Breezes. I don't recall there being any Hunter Originals, oddly enough.

There were so many collectible fans there back in the 80's and 90's. Now, many have been replaced with generic outdoor ceiling fans (Litex, Quorum, and Craftmade are some that I saw most recently). However, the last time I was there in 2003, I did spot some remaining 36" blenderfans, and a few others I can't recall at this point.

[JW]

I started liking them when I was very small; I remember being fascinated by the 40" plastic Sears Emerson we had in my room when I was a toddler. I thought all fans had four blades until I was about 4 when I saw the 5-blade fan in my nextdoor neighbor's bedroom (this fan was also on reverse - first time I'd seen that too), and later the 6-blade fan in their living room that had COOL beveled glass "globes" (must have been on the first time I was in that house, since I didn't notice it until later). The neighbors two houses down had Originals of all types and a variable speed fan that was either a Zephyr or a knockoff; when it quit, they replaced it with a 3-speed wingtipped Original and let me and my friend who lived there take it apart.

Like I'm sure most of you all did, I always made a beeline for the fan sections of the department stores; I didn't know about any manufacturers except Hunter until a friend of my dad's who was an electrician got me some catalogs in '86 or so (CasaBlanca, NuTone, Fasco, Hunter, all of which are long gone). I just remember Montgomery Ward and Wilson's (later Service Merchandise) having the coolest fans; I also remember JCPenney having a cool section until they stopped selling fans in the stores in the late 80s or so. I was also fascinated by the fans installed in malls, amusement parks, church camps, etc. as I grew older.

[Deleted]

You should get some pictures

[thefanman84 "Elder Moss"]

oh yeah!! i forgot about that!! i remember the service merchandise and jc penny books!! i wish i still had those. i remeber the encon,hunter and king of fans and another fan company too at sevice merchandise. jcpenny i cant recall. i like what they had though. i also remember the sears book for the late 80s. i have few ceiling fans from that book. i always wonder why home depot stop selling casablanca ceiling fans? anybody knows why?

[Jean Lemieux]

For me it all started at age of 3 (1994) but it first started with an old 1985 Sears 18'' brown & ivory desk fan(I still have it) But after when I realized that they were some ceiling fans existed
I toughed that they looks much more cool and fascinating. At the the time(late 90s) My favorite types of ceiling fans were spinners with four wood blades and a switch housing. Particularly my FAVORITE one of all was the white SMC Laguna 36'' with stencil blades. That one:
www.vintageceilingfans.com/smclagunaceilingfanmodelkb36late1980s.html
But the one that was sold around 1994-2001 included a mushroom light kit. I ALMOST got one of these!

Then around 2000 I started liking more bottom mounted spinners or semi-spinners. That why I choose a Encon Princess when my father had finally installed a electrical box in my ceiling.
Around that time I did not know too many brands. I knew only: SMC, Encon/Westinghouse, Nadair, Canarm and Casablanca. In November 2000 I went to Florida I found out a lot of cool fans down there including the Hunter Original. But in 2000 I did not know that they were Hunter branded. I only found out about Hunter in 2002. Same for a lot of other Americans brands.
Its around 2005 that I started liking much more fans with a stationary housing. And before I did not like all brass fans that much, I preferred much more white fans.

[Deleted]

Perrey wrote a post some years ago about all the brands Home Depot sold. I can only assume Home Depot stopped selling higher end brands due to the success of their house brand, Hampton Bay. Most people shopping at home centers for ceiling fans are looking for current designs at cheap prices, not quality or higher end stuff. And they turn more of a profit on their own label.

Jean, I too as a kid liked spinners a lot more than I do now.

[Ben C.]

I've always liked non-ceiling fans more as a kid, because I knew more about them, and were cheaper to aquire. I liked ceiling fans as a kid, but only the ones I have seen. I only figured out what they were when I joined this site, and my interests switched to ceiling fans. I've probably learned more in the last 2 years of being on fan sites than I have all my life.
To answer the question of the thread, I liked fans before I could walk. I got my first fan when I was about 2, and to this day, my uncle still has the fan. I have a picture of me as a kid staring at the ceiling fan.

[Michael]

my grandmother had an old house (still had skeleton key locks, even in front door) in st augustine, fl and had some smc's (some footprint fans) an emperor, and a murray feiss white spinner and some other brown spinner (probably seen in galleries). i was about 5 or 6 (1996) when she sold it . also, i used to live in stone mountain , ga, from the time i was turning 3 to the time i was turning 7 and withim 2 miles of the old town. there was an old ice cream shop (out of business now) and there was a white emerson from the 30s or 40s hanging above the door (i loved that fan), some other place had emperor huggers. also, the sub division was from th 70s, 80s era, so there wer plenty of neibors w/ cool fans, one of my friends houses had a low profile, 4 blade passport, and 2 originals. i used to love to go to service merchandise, sears, etc and the home depot and get the catalogs, also thrift stores (i even got a codep model 100 in one (i wish i still had it) (i think dan has one in to view fans). it is wierd how interest develops!

[Deleted]

Jun 16, 2008 19:41:57 GMT -5 Ben C. said:

I liked ceiling fans as a kid, but only the ones I have seen. I only figured out what they were when I joined this site, and my interests switched to ceiling fans.

Ben brings up an interesting point: when did you discover what the fans you liked WERE?

Somehow I always knew what Originals were, probably from the many ads in magazines. Hunters, Casablancas, and Envirofans were noticably labeled on the fan body, and I learned to read early. There was a magazine article on fans that showed me what Fascos were. Menards sold SMCs so eventually I made the connection between the DC42s and the A52 I'd loved as a child. The biggest revelation was learning that Designer Serieses, Casablanca Classics, and Blenderfans were, in fact, Emersons. Menards also sold 1895s so I knew what those were, and Homesteads were very common.

When I was young my parents took me to a few showrooms that gave me catalogs. There I learned more about Casablanca, Emerson, Homestead, Fasco, and discovered Nutone, Regency, and Gulf Coast.

When my dad bought me a DC42 for my room, he also bought me a Dimango 10 speed remote. It included instructions for many brands of fans and included pictures of various canopies. This is where I learned of Moss and Evergo.

Then there was eBay which taught be about a lot of fan brands I had never knew what they were before. I learned about Key Largos, and Crompton Greaves, and Carribean Breezes, all fans I had seen but remained unknown.

By the time we had formed these communities, I already had an idea of the majority of brands. But from the community I've learned of plenty more, such as Tyeb. And Tara.

[Andrew G.]

I've been fascinated by ceiling fans since I was very very young, probably as young as an infant. My parents had the old-fashioned bassanet in the kitchen when they ate dinner. I'd be in it, facing the ceiling to see nothing other than a big, slow TAT floral fan with a single globe light kit. Since then, I bagan to pay more and more attention to fans. I vaguely remember my dad bringing me to the local Hechinger when he needed to get something. When I was around two, I noticed the fan and light display and demanded to see the "yights". So he'd take me into the fan section, where he'd put me on his shoulders and let me turn the fans on. Around 1993, the first Sears Hardware opened in my area. I was there, and remember just about every litex and encon they had (at the time, half of the somewhat small display was made up of lights. When Sears did away with lights, the entire display went to fans, and everything was equally spaced and running. At this point, they also started selling more random hunters, along with the encon/westinghouses.. and by 'random' I mean random like seeing an iron finish original in the display.)

In 1991, my parents took me to Ocean City, MD, which is a city which will literally make a fan collector look like a kid in a candy store. I saw just about EVERYTHING when I went. In particular, I noticed a large building which sold assorted clothing and nick nacs. The building had two floors, and a massive foyer, which had two AB Fasco charlestons on a 30' ceiling, one of them was running and one of them wasn't (these fans can still be seen today). Along with the abundance of fascos, I noticed many many originals, ranging from the late 80s to the late 60s.

When I was 6, my dad got me two copies of the 1995 Hunter brochure. This is when I learned what the original and a number of other fans were called (this would come in handy when I went to Disney World in 1997, seeing all of the old late 60s R&M originals). As far as fasco went, I learned what they were when my mom took me to a lighting store just for the hell of it in 2000. I found three weird olf fans sitting on the floor for sale at $50 each. I asked an employee who made the fans, he took a close look and said Fasco. This is when I learned who exactly made those fans (charlestons) I saw EVERYWHERE in Ocean City, MD.

Since I was young, I would occasionally see a weird fan with just the motor, blades, a little tapered switch housing, and large canopies. I had always wondered who made these, for I thought only fasco made fans with dropped flywheels. I eventually found out when I was exploring an abandoned gear factory in 2003. I found one of these fans in a detached garage and HAD to have it. When I took it down, I looked at it closely and realized that emerson made the fan.

When I was 10, Beanie Babies were all the rage. My mom would collect them and sell them for a profit. Anyway, we noticed an antique shop which sold them so she just HAD to stop. The place was large and full of odd things. At this point, I decided to look for fans. So I started walking through the store until I hit a room with a fan.. and what a fan it was. I came across a VERY old original on a very long downrod, almost low enough to the point where I could touch it. I found the switch for it, flipped it, and the fan came to life. This was the first time I had seen an antique original. In 2006, the store was going out of business. They were selling everything. At this point, the DIEHL labeled original became mine for $50 complete with everything but the original downrod and mounting hardware.

As for everything else, I learned through this site when I registered in early 2004.