Peter Parry wrote:

On Wed, 03 Nov 2010 13:18:57 +0000, Dave Osborne
wrote:

Found under the floorboards of a house built in the late '50s or early
'60s.

Anybody shed any light on what "Non-association" might mean?

Rubber cable pre about 1948 was largely made by a group of companies
who formed the CMA (Cable Manufacturers Association) and fixed prices,
standards and supply quantities. Cable from non members was a cheaper
and lower quality "Nonazo" (non-Association) cable which was only
considered to be good enough for "ordinary" installations. Both CMA
and Nonazo were superceeded during WW2 by "war emergency cable" and I
believe production of Nonazo stopped in about 1948.

http://www.competition-commission.or....../004c07.pdf

One wonders whether Nonazo was really of lower quality, or just cheaper
because it wasn't as overpriced as the market leaders.

Much in the same way as a non-Heinz baked bean is cheaper than but not
necessarily inferior to a Heinz one.