1960’s Erres 6” Personal Desk Fan

Internet recently introduced me to mid-century design, and I have to say, I'm in love! It's too late for me to change the styling of my room to fit that era of design, but it's never too late to gather little trinkets for when I finally get to design a mid-century room. That's the mindset I had when I purchased this fan, probably as my own excuse to get it in the first place

This wonderful little blast from the past is a Dutch made Erres 2 speed personal fan, model VT 21! This was your average little desk fan back in the day if you live in Europe. It's got chrome, red & white accents which really fit the era, an off center mounted badge on the base which annoys the living nuggets out of me, a huge lack of safety features due to the fact that OSHA and health & safety hadn't been invented yet, a cool space age plug, and a double blade design now commonly seen on high end high tech fans. It has a few missing parts such as the rubber feets, a small rubber sleeve for the power cord, a silver blade center cap, and I presume several thrust washers. It also doesn't work on low, which I'll explain later.

The blades on this fan have some airline propeller elements on them, the pitch is deepest where it's closest to the center hub, and it gradually gets shallower towards the tip. That translates to an airplane propeller sound during operation which I think is pretty neat. The central hub has another set of blades instead of a plain circle, it's not just for design sakes, the motor in this thing needs it. The motor gets rather warm during normal operation, and the hub blades help cool it down by sucking in air from the rear vents & blowing it out front. This results in the fan practically acting like a small desktop heater, but I don't really mind as the air velocity washes away any noticeable heat from the motor. Speaking of heat, this fan gets its low speed with the help of a resistor, which was completely fried when I got this fan. I'd presume someone in the past plugged this fan into 220V and set it on low which blew the resistor & cut power to the motor before noticing that this fan runs on 110V. If it was the case, they (and I) are lucky that this fan's still somewhat alive & able to be passed down in working order. I bypassed that resistor with the help of a small wire just so I don't have to deal with 2 off positions on the switch as I can’t source a similar resistor as of this point. And speaking of passing down, I found this fan on an online listing for way cheaper than this fan is actually worth. It was still rather pricey, but as always I thought to myself I will probably never find a deal this sweet anytime in the future, so I of course had to gobble it all up!

#Vintage #Erres #DeskFan