Ben, I know that model, a collector brought one to the Missouri convention last year Canned hams are good machines. I've always wanted to try the Brandywine Canned Ham 1289 but have never come across one.
EurekaPrince, yes I agree. I am surprised that Eureka never really had a furniture guard on those. Granted Hoover Power heads at the time were similar, all plastic around the edge. The Hoover suction units though did have a thick rubber bumper guard, or at least the S series body styles did.
I remember that March 1996 of Consumer Reports was a big vacuum ratings article. They rated the Eureka WorldVac 6865 canister as Excellent for Carpet cleaning. Due to that article, my parents decided to get one for my aunt and uncle as a gift. They also rated a Powerline upright very highly so we bought one of those for our home. It only lasted 16 months though so it got replaced by a Hoover TurboPower 5000 canister. Consumer Reports rated the Hoover PowerMax and Hoover Futura canisters at Very Good for carpet cleaning. I ended up taking one of our PowerMax's to my aunts a few times to clean as I liked it better than their WorldVac canister which was rated better cleaning by CR. The WorldVac was still good, I think I was just more used to ours. Plus, I know how ours was maintained. I never popped open the power head on my aunt's unit to see how they were treating the belt, etc. I'd definitely be down to try another system. I do have a WorldVac power nozzle in my collection that gets run on occasion but no Eureka suction units of that era. It would be really cool to come across a Europa model.