Secondhand Nostalgia Is Driving Demand for Vintage Game Boys, Polaroids
Younger generations are seeking out technology they never had, from when VHS was cool.
The ’80s are back with a renewed interest in retro tech.
Source: Retrospekt
Nostalgia is no longer for the old. Although even a mediocre smartphone today has, by many measures, a better camera than most people owned in the 1980s or ’90s, the experience of watching a Polaroid picture develop in real time has an appeal that transcends generations.
Catering to this fascination is Milwaukee-based Retrospekt, which has carved out a niche by reliably restoring vintage technology. The company is best known for refurbishing and reselling Polaroid cameras, which get fully disassembled, often down to the components, and rebuilt. For a 50th anniversary edition SX-70, the original chrome was stripped and then plated with 24-karat gold.