In the I Love Lucy episode Sales Resistance Lucy falls for a slick sales patter and ends up with her “Handy Dandy” vacuum cleaner which is really an early 50’s  Westinghouse  Dyna-Matic tank vacuum cleaner.  The Westinghouse Dyna-Matic tank sweeper had a throw away inner bag and a set of attachments as seen on the show.

See another similar one on eBay HERE

Pictured above is a well preserved  Westinghouse tank vacuum cleaner with attachments found  at http://www.vacuumland.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?3848 looking very similar to the one seen on the show – even the paper tag looks the same.

A 1950 newspaper ad gives the price as  $49.95  which is equivalent to almost $500 in 2015 so Ricky’s reaction is not surprising. Incidentally Lucy is seen using the upright model vacuum cleaner in The Black Eye episode.

According to this NY Times article ” Hoover executives saw an episode of ”I Love Lucy” in which Lucille Ball peddled vacuum cleaners door to door. Hoover cut a deal with the show’s producers to have one of its products, and especially its brand name, displayed whenever a vacuum appeared in the plot, Mr. Kravitz said.”

The Hoover that appeared on the show was possibly a Hoover upright model 62.