Hi Keith and John,
I think technically, the name Empress was not used by Eureka until the model with the white braided hose came out in 1965. Anything with a competely removeable lid is not an Empress - it’s a MobileAire or Vibra-Beat. Most of the time, when vac-makers like Eureka introduced a brand new vacuum design, the older designs continued to be sold in the product line-up. These older designs would have a cheaper price tag than the newcomer, but might sport some new colours or better motors or newer graphics.
I’m not quite sure when the last Mobile-Aire style canister model was sold. It could be that Eureka kept producing them concurrently with the newer Empress Ones and Twos, all the way into the 1970’s. Eureka definitely kept producing the old style for private labels like Montgomery Wards and Eaton Viking for quite some time.
There are some very informative Eureka sales brochures available on Vacuumland’s site - look for the link on the main home page. Not sure if these are dated, but they might be!
I think technically, the name Empress was not used by Eureka until the model with the white braided hose came out in 1965. Anything with a competely removeable lid is not an Empress - it’s a MobileAire or Vibra-Beat. Most of the time, when vac-makers like Eureka introduced a brand new vacuum design, the older designs continued to be sold in the product line-up. These older designs would have a cheaper price tag than the newcomer, but might sport some new colours or better motors or newer graphics.
I’m not quite sure when the last Mobile-Aire style canister model was sold. It could be that Eureka kept producing them concurrently with the newer Empress Ones and Twos, all the way into the 1970’s. Eureka definitely kept producing the old style for private labels like Montgomery Wards and Eaton Viking for quite some time.
There are some very informative Eureka sales brochures available on Vacuumland’s site - look for the link on the main home page. Not sure if these are dated, but they might be!
