Eureka 260EK

[texbodemer]

Hi! I have a Eureka 260EK, and I have a couple quick questions:
1. When was the 260 series made?
2. Does anyone have serial numbers for it?
3. What would the original bag look like?

Thanks!

Nick

 

[eurekaprince]

The Eureka Automatic 260 was the first upright vacuum we had when I was growing up in Montreal. Believe it or not, Eureka Williams came up with this number as the year 1960 approached. And I think the green and gold version was made to celebrate Eureka's 50th anniversary in 1959...the year I was born. So the manufacturing window must have been from around 1957 to 1965...with many versions denoted by the letter: 260A, 260B, 260C, 262, 265, etc.

In the 1950s, Eureka's uprights were in the 250 range. And when the year 1970 approached, the Vanguard got the model number 2070.

 

[texbodemer]

That's awesome!

I love my 260!

 

[eurekaprince]

Her is the dealer brochure for the Eureka Super Automatic 260 that my dad bought in about 1961 for my mom. It's got the exact bag we had - with a unique vertical rectangle at the top right side and the new curvey "EW" logo at the top of the rectangle. Very hard to find a Lagoon Blue version of the 260 with this unique bag logo.

 

[eurekaprince]

Here is the rest of the brochure. It's for the 1959 Anniversary edition as the colour is a minty dark green with a gold headlight frame. Later editions - like the one we had - were blue instead of green with a silver chrome headlight frame.

 

[eurekaprince]

And here is the tool set we had - in a nifty cardboard carrier. This photo shows a kind of pinkish cardboard... ours was light blue to match the tools.

 

[eurekaprince]

Ooops...forgot to add the back of the Tool Caddy...it had a large instruction sheet glued to the cardboad that had nifty instuctions on how to convert the upright for hose cleaning....and to show what each of the four attachments were designed to clean.

There was a large compartment on the back of the box to store the braided blue hose.

 

[hygiene903]

Brian,

Wish I could find an attachment set like that for my 260, pictured here. Did they also make an attachment set in green?
Jeff

 

[texbodemer]

I'm wondering

I'm wondering if it might actually be blue. (Nicotine can do that)--maybe take Scrubbing Bubbles, or wash with dish soap and a toothbrush?

 

[luxlife]

It's green.

It matches the same shade of green that was also used on the Mobil-aire and Roto-Matic canisters of this period. AeolianDave has a photo of machines in this color which are part of his collection.

https://www.vacuumland.org/cgi-bin/...AEOLIANDAVE.jpg&dir=/COLLECTIONS/AEOLIANDAVE/

 

[eurekaprince]

Jeff,

I am trying to remember if Eureka ever made the 260’s set of attachments in green. They must have because there are already were sets of green attachments made for the matching 1959 golden anniversary canisters.

I would not be a bit surprised if the tools in my photo are actually green but appear bluish due to some odd lighting…the tool box itself looks oddly pink when in fact it might be white. Maybe the tones are off in that pic of the tool caddy I found.

Let me see if I can find a green 260 tool set on the internet for you….

By the way, your 260 is the first green version I have ever seen with the chrome silver headlight frame. Maybe its a replacement for the original gold one?

The headlight use to scare the c>£#p out of me as a toddler! The whole motor head looked like the face of a kid-eating monster!!!!

 

[hygiene903]

Brian,

The headlight trim on my 260 actually IS gold. Just kind of looked like chrome because of the way the light hit it when the pic was taken.
Jeff

 

[eurekaprince]

Thanks for that Jeff. It seems the colouring of this Eureka model can really change appearance depending on the lighting.

So now we have a "holy grail" to hunt down: a green set of Eureka Super Automatic upright attachments!!!

It's interesting how Eureka designed the little hose port cover to light up the brandname when the vac was turned on and the headlight lit up. The hose port cover was made of rubber on the underside glued to a thick translucent plastic plate on the top side. The clear plastic seemed to light up when the headlight shone on it. Eureka did a similar thing with the Continental uprights in the seventies...the brandname would light up when the vac was turned on.