"A novel idea for the audiophile who likes his music wherever he is. A household teacart can be used as a mobile carrier for any combination of audio gear." December 1954. View full size. Ektachrome by Ken Schmid Studio. Components: Regency HF-150 high fidelity amplifier, Webcor "Diskchanger," Jensen "Duette" reproducer. More from the original press release from Regency Inc.: "Most homemakers are used to wheeling their cleaning equipment with them from room to room -- why not do the same for the entertainment unit that helps to

The photos you see here on Shorpy are not just resized versions of the images found in the Library of Congress archives -- they are extracted from the LOC's full-resolution reference tiffs: a process that generally takes anywhere from half an hour to several hours per monochrome image, depending on the amount of work that needs to be done to bring detail out of the shadows, suppress overexposed highlights, and remove blemishes caused by dust, scratches and mold. Color images require correction for color cast as well. The before-and-after composite above shows the condition of some of these old glass negatives a century after they were exposed, and how they look after a day at the digital restoration spa. This one is from 1908. View full size. Below is the 36 mb archival tiff resized to 512 px wide. The restored version is here.

Below is another before-and-after example. Restored version.

Below: Another monochrome example. Click to enlarge.

Just in from NASA, a spectacular image assembled from 48 frames taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of the Carina Nebula 7500 light-years away, which means we are seeing these stars as they were in 5500 BC — making this the oldest picture on Shorpy so far. The bright star at left is Eta Carinae, which can be seen throwing off two enormous lobes of gas prior to exploding — possibly in the next few thousand years, maybe tomorrow — as a titanic supernova. We're offering this as a JG fine art print, made using NASA's 480mb master file.

November 10, 1921. "Radio switchboard" somewhere in the vicinity of New York City. View full size. 5x7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection.

Telephone company switchboard, probably 1920s. Exact location unknown, but somewhere in British Mandate Palestine. View full size. Matson Photo Service.

Early 20th-century telephone switchboard in British-Mandate Palestine. View full size. American Colony Photo Department. Location not specified although sign in background lists police and ambulance numbers "in Jerusalem."

Switchboard operators in 1930s or 1940s British-Mandate Palestine, a few years after the other photo (the chairs look a little less like torture devices). Matson Photo Service. View full size.