(Some of) my favorites.

I know, I know.

The term 'vape' has come to mean something quite different these days. 

But to my siblings and me, "the vape" means only one thing -- our old Hankscraft 240 vaporizer. 

Well, to be more accurate, not just that one. We certainly had more than one over those many years; one of them was the Gerber version of the 240. Hankscraft/Gerber also made smaller, lighter-capacity vaporizers and at various points we had a few of those too. A bit later on we had a few smaller humidifiers from DeVilbiss, Sunbeam and Vicks... and we called each of them, all of them, "the vape":

 

 

They each had their quirks; I recall the Vicks model being a little too rattly to be truly as soothing as the others (it was made of the thinnest plastic), and the first of the two DeVilbiss models pictured above  -- the Model 272 -- tended to need refilling quite a bit more often as it ran out sooner than the other one, which was odd since they ostensibly had the same gallon(ish) capacity and were supposed to output the same 'mist/hour' volume. 

But those were simply little quirks, things to be easily tolerated and even loved after a time, because they were still your best nighttime sleep friend, especially when you weren't otherwise feeling your best. 

Among my current 'vape' collection, I have one of the early '70s DeVilbiss 250B models (the blue-green model) and a similar model made by Kaz (in that tan color like the Model 272 pictured above) from about the same era. In fact, Kaz has been the manufacturer of the Vicks line of warm steam and cool mist humidifiers over the years, and still makes them for Vicks and under the Kaz name. If they are as good as the vintage Kaz I own, they are certainly up to the task but only average in tank capacity and sound.

And as any humidiot knows, SOUND is as important as any other function of a good humidifier.

For my life I will never understand why anyone would want a cool mist vape that is quiet. Why 'silent operation' or 'quiet running' is a feature and not a bug for current manufacturers (let alone consumers) is utterly beyond me. What's the point of silence with cool mist? Steam, okay, whole different thing, that's fine... but impeller models? 

Ya GOTTA have sound, baby.

And the great grand mama, the ultimate god-empress of vaporizer sound, has to be the Hankscraft/Gerber 240:

 ... followed closely by its slightly littler sibling, the Model 241:

... which has a one gallon (actually 1.12 gallon) capacity, rather than the 240's gallon and a half-ish ("1 and 3/5 gallons") tank. 

Oh yes, the sound is the thing. I think Shakespeare wrote that.

And the sound of the 240 is the authentic sound of a vaporizer. 

In fact, the 240 style (and its variants, as I'll discuss in a future post) is probably the most iconic, best remembered cool mist 'vape' in history. It was surely the most popular and most widely purchased model/style over its many production runs under various brand names from the early '60s through at least the early '80s, and was almost certainly the type most often used over those decades. Its sound is the one most people of a certain age range recall most vividly and with great fondness.

Any true humidiot knows what I mean: the BEST PART of the whole humidifier 'thing', that hissing, fuzzy, beautifully soothing white noise with the occasional drips and drops... and after a time, the sound of the tank running low and that thrumming, whirring with more air than water... and then once you've refilled it, that wonderful return of the 'vape sound' when you reseat the lid and... aaahhhh!

The magic resumes.

 

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...