Decorating and Xeroxing

The price of decorating and photocopying in 1973 and how it compares to today

View from … a bygone age

John Lewis always had a big branch in Newcastle, but until 2002 it was called Bainbridge’s and in 1973 it was located in Market Street.

Your bill, sir!

 

Judging by this receipt, Bainbridge’s seemed like quite the place to get all your decorating supplies.

In 1973 you paid 41p for a paint brush (you can find one at John Lewis for £7 today).

Sandpaper would set you back 7 new pence (John Lewis doesn’t sell it today but you can buy some for £2).

I can’t read the other items but that seems like quite a haul of 8 goods, all for £1.72. Sorry, no computerised inventory checks yet.

All for 22 new pence

 

Meanwhile, here is a bill from the office at Tyne Tees TV for 15 photocopies. For “the Wall”, it says here. Price: 22p, 31^st May 1973. Nice to see payment in full by cheque.

Photocopying hadn’t reached its peak yet – think about all those Student Film Soc. Hand-outs, agit-prop leaflets, demos, marches, sit-ins, samizdat material from behind the Iron Curtain.

Xerox-ing technology was still in its infancy and quite expensive.

Teacher-led handouts, first-day-at-work rules and regs, sale-now-on leaflets and a myriad of promotional bumpf for shows, concerts, newsletters and bill posters were all yet to come.

Photocopying was to go through the classic technology arc that occurs in things like desktop computers, toasters and transistor radios.

Production at scale leads to a greater competition (Canon, Ricoh!) leads to lower pricing.

And eventually common-place banality or technology redundancy as cameras in our smartphones made photocopying irrelevant.

In 1973, it’s interesting to see how the office at Tyne Tees TV was charging employees for the service. That must have been to stop illicit freebie copying.

It’s also interesting to note that in 2024 you can get 15 photocopies done at a copy shop for £4.50. That’s quite a modest price rise, in comparison to, say, a paint brush.

But then, you’d have to find somewhere with a photocopier, and that’s quite hard in this day and age...