AIREQUIPT - AUTOMATIC SLIDE MAGAZINE FOR 2" x 2" SLIDES

Tradition for my wife Christina and I while taking a vacation is to visit thrift stores. It's this treasure hunting that has produced some of our most memorable collectables. Though we're not hoarders, when we came across a mysterious metal box reading "#3 1967 Trip", that same adrenaline that fuels these overly accumulating citizens seemed to hit us. Now we have a secret box that we're obsessed with.

I was digging in the electronics section of a well-known chain thrift store looking for any cable ends that could be useful, like a common USB cable or something of that sort, when I found the box. The first thing that caught my eye was the "#3 1967 Trip". I assumed that this was some type of antiquated audio or video recording device and I paid no mind at first. I had laid it back on the shelf when I noted several small layers on one side of the box. Upon closer inspection, I saw these layers could be removed, so I removed one.

I saw this lady standing in front of a small hill with a tall mountain in the background. I immediately stopped and took in every detail of the photo; the trees, the grass, the clouds, and her. I was addicted. I placed this photo back into its slot, and began to take some of the other photos out, one by one.

By now I know that this metal box contains old photo slides, the ones I've only seen on TV. I begin to look around on the shelf for any more of these small metal boxes, only to come up empty handed. I did find the projector, though. It was missing its power cable, so I rigged up one from an extension cord to try out.

No power. No lights. No glowing bulb. I quickly searched the internet for this type of projector. Airequipt, was the only word I typed into my shopping search engine, this was written on the side of the projector. There seemed to be quite a few of these projectors online at reasonable prices, so I skipped on the broken one for the same cost.

Back to the slides. I looked at the small metal box. On one side it said "AIREQUIPT - AUTOMATIC SIDE MAGAZINE FOR 2X2 SLIDES". Using this information, I searched online again for Airequipt outside the shopping arena. I found that Airequipt is actually registered as Airequipt Manufacturing Company Inc. I found this website, a wiki site, but found nothing else other than a few lists of makes and models of magazines, projectors, and cameras. According to the wiki site, the company was around in the early 1960's, maybe Japanese. I'm assuming it wasn't a large company, and with projector competitor Kodak, I'm sure Airequipt wasn't around long.

I bought the magazine only. I'm assuming it was inside the projector because the magazine itself did not have a price. I took it up to the front checkout desk where the manager came to check on a price. She didn't know what the magazine was. She said, "Is two dollars OK?" I said, "Yes."

I'm sure I would have paid any price to have a closer look a the photos inside. I'm now consumed with finding out more about the 1967 Trip that some random family I may never know, that is probably dead, went on and documented with stunning photo slides.

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