mouth piece on the blue lable Broxton

[eskimo3883]

Hi,

Can anyone tell me about the the mouth piece on the blue lable Broxton reg that just sold on ebay for $400.00 (140046105683)? The mouth piece was separate from the two hoses and marked with FPI inside a rectangle. I had thought all original hoses were molded with the mouth piece as part of the hoses (one part). I am aware of some alternative mouth parts but I am not aware of what FPI might stand for. Is this a european brand?

[YankDownUnder]

I don't believe that is an original hose arrangement for the blue labeled Broxton.

The blue one piece vulcanized hose (without valves) appears on most 'blue' Broxton's. The blue hoses first appeared on the green label, about half way through production. The first 'greens' had chromed mouth pieces. The blue hoses were labled made in USA. The green label was the first Aqua Lung made entirely in the USA. The blue label followed, using the same hoses as the late 'greens'.

Old parts, new parts and imported parts show up, as well as many later modifications, repairs and after market items, as we all know. My blue label Broxton has later black hoses with Tinnerman's. and would be a replacement item. My late green label Broxton has the original blue hoses.

(Just my opinion and you know what they say about opinions!)

[eskimo3883]

Hi YankDownUnder,

It is odd how some rubber can survive while others rot. Seems like a lot of the pigmented rubber degraded sooner than the black parts. I covet your blue hoses and doubt there are many others that have survived. I have a blue label reg with a one piece USD hose but it is black. The hose is still diveable and in better shape than some 20 years younger.

Anyone know when USD changed changed from blue to black one piece hoses?

Anyone know what year did USD change from black one part hoses to hoses with a separate mouth piece?

[vintagemike6]

hello eskimo joe, i won that broxton and i too am curious about that mouthpiece. i know that it is not original to the regulator. i did contact dan on vss and he told me that it was an aftermarket part made in limited quanitys in the 50's. i will let you know more info when i find out more.
just curious, are you the same eskimo that won a u.s. divers royal mistral recently?
mike

[eskimo3883]

Hi vintagemike6,

Thanks for the offer to educate us on the mouth piece. Small bits of info like this are very difficult to acquire. The regs should stay around for quite some time but the few folks with knowledge of the day need to be listened to before they move on. Whoever coughed up the more than $600 for the 1953 USD catalog definitely deserves to own it, but how fantastic would it be to allow its information to be added to the Vintage Scuba CD of US Divers Catalogs (1961-1970) or some other downloadable source. You can not get that information from books.

I did manage to get hold of the Royal Mistral although one or two a few folks made sure I really wanted it. Hard to figure how there are many more 1953-54 USD regs showing up than 1965-67 Royal Mistrals. The number of divers in 1953-54 should have been quite small compared to the mid 60’s.