What do I love more than great quality mid century furniture? Catalogues for said furniture! It’s always great to come across an original piece of advertising, which happened when I came into possession of an ATEL wall unit a few weeks ago. The unit is currently dismantled and stacked atop of my car in the shed, however tonight I thought I’d share a few images of the ‘Personal Plan Series’ unit chart and model calculator as the ATEL wall units have been a topic of discussion in a few social media groups over the past few weeks so thought it would be fitting!
As you can see from the above picture, this brochure listed 120 varying cabinet/shelving units that you could mix and match to produce the wall unit of your desire! Another really great feature is that all the prices are listed below, giving an accurate cost of each unit.
The unit that came with this brochure was 10 ft wide, and 2 units tall, and cost $361 in the early 1960’s. According to the bureau of statistics, the average male wage at the same time was between $30 – $40 a week. Do the math, these were not cheap units!
I thought I’d finish off by posting an image of one ATEL unit currently for sale on Gumtree for appreciation. Beautiful! Now just to find a wall big enough!
This is really cool, especially seeing the catalogue! I’m a huge fan of ATEL since inheriting some pieces, and adding a few more. Great quality units.
Glad you like Sahra! They definitely are a high quality unit. I look forward to setting up my one when space allows.
Thanks, John.
I’ve just reassembled (for the 3rd time) an Atel wall unit inherited from my mum.
I was a teen when she bought it.
Solid laminated timber with teak veneer. Ikea eat your heart out.
Most definitely David! Very rare to see quality like that of the ATEL units these days!
And it just goes to show by how they’ve stood the test of time, and still are as functional as they were 50 years ago.
Thanks for the comment. 🙂
Great post! Thank you for sharing.
Did Atel offer a choice of different veneers for their units? Or was everything made in Teak?
Hi Ray,
Glad you enjoyed.
As far as I am aware of, they only offered their units in teak, not to say there are other units out there with a different veneer! The catalogue makes reference to genuine teak & teak veneer back panels (at extra cost).
Thanks,
John