Thanks for filling out your profile.  You'll love it here.  Here are SOME of my Connies.  Enjoy!

is one of my favorites.

I only have a few but they are all stellar examples I hunted down.

Top picture - the all white with Canton Red trims is a Canadian made exclusive, USA didn't get it.

Bottom picture is the three first edition swivel-tops (blue is non-floater) from 1954 through 1957.

From the man who has everything Hoover, Tom Anderson, this is a small section of his Constellation shelves.

Perhaps John Long has a few, too. LOL

Oh, and Fred Masterweb has a couple of 'em, too. :-)

Dave

I go there.

  John Gregory.... do you feel better having said that?  Did that bring you joy?  I hope it did. We all have our favorite machines.

 I didn't get into Constellations until about 20 years ago.  But, you all know what happens:  1 becomes 2,3,4.........

Fair enough question, John.

You vacuumed with the vacuum stationary in the center of the room like a GE Reach-Easy, early Eureka Roto-matic or  an Air-Way 55. The GE Reach-Easy swivel-top and Lewyt side hose canisters had a blister dimple in the center bottom that kept the body centered on carpet and floors, that aided the entire vacuum rotating in place. Runners for cylinders and smooth flat bottoms on round canisters was the norm in the late '40s to early '50s. Wheels seem like a no-brainer to us now but they had not been considered yet. Aftermarket wheel kits were made available for cylinders with runner rails and by 1956 wheels were fairly standard on all vacuum models of every brand.

The Constellation 82's advantage is that it came with an Ultraflex hose that could stretch - without kickback - to twice it's length.

The bottom ring was smooth with 4 shallow convex 'dimple feet' so you could drag it across floors and carpet but this was not recommended and could scratch hard floors. Exhaust blew upwards around the body.

Hoover later remedied this with an optional wheeled base rack but these are exceeding rare, tho a few members have one.

The other two Constellation swivel-tops have a modified base ring that directs the exhaust down to lift the vacuum slightly off the floor and low pile carpet for effortless gliding

Subsequent Connies had a redesigned ring that performed the same lift principle  and hovering ability and the hose connection was moved from the top center to further down the side.

Dave

I think you can wrap the cord any way you like.

1. wrap it around the handle, takes a while to un-wrap.

2. coil it up and push the bundle under the handle, pull out the bundle and it's ready to plug in. Best for a Daily Driver.

3. wrap it around the base, harder to deploy.

4. if you look at the Rose one in my top pic you can see the two half-round tabs just above the bumper ring. This allows you to wrap the cord around the bumper and it easily lifts off. Hoover did this on purpose.

5. Just plop the tangled cord ball on top of the machine and toss the whole thing in the back porch...ok, maybe not. :-)

Yes, I wrap the hose around the base whether there's a cord there or not.

For display purposes I like to feature the clean Sputnik shape not the cord.

My take.

Dave

Your work looks like they just left Perivale.

would be proud.

Lee,

Were these the Connies you found in a shed?