Remember those big black disks with holes in the middle that used to be played on “turntables?”
They’re not actually ancient history. This past year, worshipers at what novelist Michael Chabon calls “the Church of Vinyl” bought 9.2 million records. And though vinyl sales make up only two percent of record industry revenues, they’re up by more than 250 percent since 2009.
Meanwhile, the slew of new independent bookstores is a testament to how print books have proved remarkably resilient in the face of competition from e-books: Purchases of paper books are rising, while sales figures for digital next-generation formats are leveling off.
And once shunned in favor of timepieces powered by quartz crystals, mechanical watches have made a remarkable comeback. Despite the need for winding, the prospect of expensive repairs and even a slightly less accurate assessment of the time, mechanical timepieces have attracted a new generation of buyers, many of whom never previously owned a watch dependent on a mainspring.
