It came to my attention earlier this week, via a very nice message from Ben Vanhees, that there is already a site on the Internet called Retroscoop, which deals with the concepts of preserving the past and delivering information about nostalgic gems from years gone by. Ben, the creator of www.retroscoop.com, started his site back in 2010.
When I chose the name Retroscoop, I had no idea that Ben’s site existed, as I relied on the WordPress search facility to choose a unique name. Originally I wanted to call my site RetroScope, but that had already been taken. Anyhow, in late 2013, I launched my blog site, completely oblivious to the fact that Ben’s site was already up and running and doing an uncannily similar job to mine.
Ben was incredibly gracious and greeted my humble blog as a family member rather than a copycat or rival, which I am most grateful for! Here is Ben’s message:
Well, I didn’t know yet the older Belgian Retroscoop (www.retroscoop.com) has a new family member… Hopefully, a network of Retroscoop’s will emerge gradually, and become one of the biggest virtual museums of the world 🙂 Success mate ! Benoit (Ben) Vanhees
In fact, this Retroscoop and the Belgian one are very nicely complementary, as the first one concentrates on the recent past, while the latter one, established in Antwerp in 2010 concentrates on the pre 1980 period. Good luck with the project, I’ll announce the existence of a 2nd Retroscoop on the home page and I’ll add a link in the “interesting links”-part. Cheerio, keep up the good work!
Ben’s www.retroscoop.com is an excellent site which:
“Pays tribute to a wide range of graceful, elegant, decorative or socially interesting aspects of the period that is roughly situated between 1900 and 1980”.
There are many fascinating articles on Ben’s site, covering a wide range of topics from Architecture, Music & Cinema, Transport, Sport, Literature (including my fave – Science Fiction) – and so much more besides! It is well worth a visit, and I’m sure that you will spend a lot of time there browsing the wealth of material he has published so far.
As Ben says, both Retroscoops are very complimentary to one another, so here’s to the Retroscoop Network of Virtual Museums! You can find a link to Ben’s site on the newly created Links page.
Many thanks Ben!
RetroScoop 