With its mixture of type 'A' & type 'I' sockets, there must be a lot of blade-bending going on in China!
Perhaps the new nickname for a Chinese person could be a "Blade-bender"?

China would also be awash with "grey-goods" products with type A plugs intended for export to Pacific Rim countries that use type A wall sockets and mix 110v & 220v.

The convention may have derived from Lloyds of London and was applied to switches. In fault mode certain valves in steamships had to fail "safe" which usually meant shut. ie if the handle dropped to 90 degrees

Marc

Here is a bakelite extension outlet, made in USA, using the Aussie pattern

These are not made anymore for the USA.

My issue with the availability of plugs here, is the fact that non availability is just as likely to cause accidents as availability.

If a plug type like 110V that is foreign to our plugs is not available, it will as I found lately, liable to end up with the common one. So the uneducated will plug the 110V device into 240V which it won't appreciate.

I have a couple of 110V devices & a collector here has a 100V Lyric. I absolutely refuse to put an Australian 3pin plug on these, to the point I solid wired the Lyric to a dedicated step down transformer.

Clipsal make these plugs though only the two parallel pin type that I know of. These are rated at 250V at 10A but could easily be used for 110V applications. The shroud is the familiar transparent one with the grey gland as per their commonplace 439TR ones. The trick is, you will need to go to an electrical wholesaler to lay your hands on one.

I found online a Clipsal catalogue http://cacms.clipsal.com/trade/__data/page/81/A124.pdf that on page 34, shows catalogue number 405, looks like an unpolarized parallel American outlet. And number 415, an Aussie outlet without the switch. Here's the American made version:

I highlighted the marking "10A 250V" with some red nail polish I stole from my mom, to make it a little clearer that it will deliver 250V.

And a cover plate 321R to use with it.

A parallel:
1916 US plug format adopted in Australia in 1930s
1916 US bridge design also adopted in Aust 1930s
Both brilliant designs
(Gustav Lindenthal's Long Island Hell Gate bridge)
Lindenthal was not even an engineer just a prolific genius

Yes I remember plastic in the later 60's so I guess that would be when they hit the market in the 60's at some point

Seems it was at lest patented or a known design in the USA the style we use...which strangely wasn't adopted there as I think its a good idea to polarise Active Neutral..but Then again the US seems only now to have found the true worth of an Earth wire and polarising A,N...yet I guess at times an earth can be a minus...as in more potential chances to get caught between Active and Earth

That said thought and a side point, there were (and I think I still got one somewhere) a Double Adapter that by "Design Transpose" the "Active and Neutral"...this NOT a Good idea....So just a point to be wary of if you got any old *bakelite type double adapters hanging around
(*sure it was but maybe of a similar substance)

If I find it I'll get Brad to post some pictures

Unless it was one design that slipped through the net or more likely we weren't in days gone by as fussy with Active Neutral...better then the USA in that regard... but light sockets were a popular place to take power from in days gone by in Oz too.

Sure there are collectors out there, people will collect anything
and I guess for history I am glad they do

Good post Scraps, Thanks

Its adoption in China - the world's largest economy - is huge!
Verifies Australia's rejection of alternatives 70 years previously.

A compelling reason for Australia not to adopt the British plug in the 1940s was because it was simply too expensive to produce. That and the fact that a system was already established here made allegiance to something the Mother Country had finally got around to producing not viable, nor indeed necessary.

New Zealand, New Guinea and a number of pacific islands also adopted the system Australia was using simply because of their proximity to Australia.

I think the other good thing to come from the original Hubbell plug was the versatility that would come from it later on. The Australian system utilises a mind-boggling array of pin patterns depending on purpose and current ratings. Most people have never seen some of the less-common patterns. Usually, only electricians and people like theatre (stage) technicians, emergency lighting servicemen and suppliers of appliances that draw a heavy current see some of the unusual types, again because outside the socket, the plug looks much the same as a standard one. Round earth pins, larger pins, four pins, L and C section earth pins, two parallel pins, two perpendicular pins and many more.

Some of the pin patterns can be seen in this comment.

It is worth making a side comment about shutters too. British and US sockets are now required to be fitted with shutters over the two hot holes, activated by the earth pin as it enters its hole. Australian power points have for a long time offered shutters as an option though these are most commonly sighted in caravans (where the socket must also be double-pole switched) or in places where large numbers of young children congregate - pre-schools, hospitals, etc.