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.
Its the famous Dyna-matic Tank Cleaner with a twelve-piece set of attachments to make all your home cleaning easy. And with all this you get the speedy floor polisher to keep your floors shiny and protected. All this at one remarkable price. ( Source 1952 Pittsburgh Post Gazette, May 16,1952)