Numatic Henry Colour Info.

[ultimatevacman]

Hi everyone,

Numatic have been making the Henry for over 30 years now, and I was wondering about the colours. When the lettering changed to outlined white writing (at around 2000) they advertised the 4 colours, red, blue, green and yellow. See picture below.

(Continued on next post...)

 

[ultimatevacman]

But before 2000 (when the outlined lettering was introduced) they never advertised the Henry in colours other than red.

See picture below.

 

[ultimatevacman]

But you still see Henry's with the bold lettering (pre-1999) in different colours.
Here's some pics:

 

[ultimatevacman]

pic 2

 

[ultimatevacman]

pic 3

 

[ultimatevacman]

So I was wondering, how did you get the old type Henry in different colours? Because Numatic never advertised them at all.

If anyone has any info it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

- Joe

 

[dysondestijl]

I suppose you just went into your electricals store and discovered that Henry came in different colours?

 

[ultimatevacman]

Thanks for the reply George.

It would cost Numatic more to make them in these colours, and they weren't standard colours at that time. But I get where you're coming from. Unless there was some sort of demand for Henry's in different colours other than red. They do look good in blue I have to say.

Thanks,

- Joe

 

[beko1987]

Red

I grew up thinking Henry only came in Red. It was a happy day when I learnt of the other colours, then when I bought my Henry Hound (Green) and specced a Yellow George my life improved ten-fold*.

I often wondered why they never advertised, unless it was to get people into the shops by seeing the other colours.

If you were Jo the cleaner guy ordering over the phone (before t'internet remember...) you wouldn't know there were any other colours, hence the sea of red!


*May not represent real life events....

 

[dysondestijl]

Well that's the same with basil,, Wendy etc, these were never advertised either!
It's only now that more stores , such as Argos, are selling Henry's in colours other than red, that people actually realise that Henry is not just red!
Also, have you ever seen a Numatic advert? I don't think they ever made adverts(TV ads) yet they seem to be the UKs most popular commercial vacuum- yet dyson have like a new advert every few months!

 

[vintagerepairer]

colours

The large retail outlets only ever seemed to stock red, as did most independent stores, but us in the independent market could always order any colour if we chose to. Numatic always had a flagship colour for each model, such as Henry in red and Charles in blue. Making the tubs in different colours was not the cost prohibitive part, as all tubs could fit any cleaner head for that size tub, but having the main head (the part with the motor) with colour matched lettering was, as it limited the number of colours it could be fitted to.

It was more expensive this way as Numatic had to run four different production runs (one for each colour), meaning four production lines, or at least a break for the operator to change the colour of the ink in the printing machine. With white lettering the main head could be attached to any colour of tub further down the assembly line, and left the operators free to roll out the same style head one after the other.

 

[vintagerepairer]

and another thing

After the use of solid coloured letters, Numatic did coloured outlines too, before switching to white, as can be seen here:

 

[ultimatevacman]

Thanks for all the replies everyone, it makes sense now.
Although Argos only stocked Henry in red, until a few years ago when they got all the colours.

 

[j3ttf]

I wish they still did the colored non-filled outlines