555
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Thanks but I have enough stuff to fill a museum!
The Lugzsonian - A Virtual Tour
- Thread starter Private Lugnutz
- Start date
OP
Private Lugnutz
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Private Lugnutz
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Private Lugnutz
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That text comes from the book in the middle of this hasty display, a recent gift from the Curator's Wife, plucked from the un-sold inventory of her mother's defunct junk shop, which the Curator has since re-assembled upstairs on the cabinet under the bookshelves in the parlor of the Curator's Quarters. It was published in 1917.
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Private Lugnutz
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While not their intent, some of the short passages in the later lessons, out of context, like the one I posted before, are quite beautiful, reading almost like some kind of freeform prose poetry. Seriously. Maybe it's because I have seen so many well-done WWI films lately, including Peter Jackson's They Shall Not Grow Old documentary, which came out a few years ago with the movie 1917, and the more recent All Quiet on the Western Front. Here's another one.
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Private Lugnutz
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Here's one that's a little less poetic, and a little more practical, for fuller context.
WisJim
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I have some similar type of booklets of my father's, from World War Two, for Chinese, Burmese, and maybe an Indian language? All from when he was stationed in the East and spent time in China. Sadly to me, he never talked much about what he did there.
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Private Lugnutz
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Same, and same. A common trait. I've commented before in other threads how odd it was for me to see the veterans providing interludes during Band of Brothers. That is completely foreign to my experience, and that includes my pop, an aunt, and four uncles, one of whom fought in the Battle of the Bulge, who left home speaking perfectly fine, but came back with the stutter my brothers and I knew in the 60s. Ironically, he drove a VW Fastback wagon that he had imported to Bayonne. When he visited he brought packages of mushrooms, and big buckets of golf balls he found when picking mushrooms. We'd play cards, putz around the garage, go fishing, and when he was in a jovial mood, he'd do handstands on chairs, one arm on the seat, one on the top of the backrest, and, once, no lie, on the chimney of the house. He was a legendary wrestler in high school. When he left, we'd find cloves of garlic in the pockets of our coats. But never once told a war story.
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Private Lugnutz
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Private Lugnutz
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Smokeshow69
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I don’t know if that’s the correct shade of od. What is the correct shade of od
? Sorry I couldn’t resist, but the puzzle looks great.A truly remarkable and most highly recommended film.
OP
Private Lugnutz
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For those who are not familiar, it's basically a 2 hour "movie", in the sense that it follows a small group of people and what happens to them, dramatically, over time, including their own dialogue, much like 1917, or the latest Remarque novel film, but instead of actors and sets, etc, it was constructed entirely from old footage. Thousands and thousands of hours of black and white reel-to-reel footage of actual soldiers. Jackson and his team went through it all and stitched together segments into a narrative. Then they used a new technique to colorize it. It starts off in black and white, for effect, then transforms into color right before your eyes. The impact is very powerful. It is so vivid that the mind of a modern audience sees it as a movie, yet simultaneously knows it's very, very real. The overall result is, as leg declared, truly remarkable.
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Private Lugnutz
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These pins and pendants all depict the same thing: a crown with two fleur de lis at the bottom, one star at the top, ringed by leaves. Does anyone know what it is?
RTM
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No clue, but this book, starting at page 350, might give some clues. That style is shown around fig 637, might be some clues in the literature that will point you to some Fraternal Order you recognize in your hood. They talk of laurel leaves there too.
OP
Private Lugnutz
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Thanks, RTM.
Old Radar
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Private Lugnutz
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The Acquisitions Dept brough home this antique milk bottle opener on Sunday, causing all kinds of trouble on the Garage Sale thread, and creating a massive time sink for the Curator.
While the Curator and the Acquisitions Dept are oldtimers and had milk delivered to their porch in Pennsylvania - not too far from St. Claire, as chance would have it, in glass bottles, the caps were foil, and they couldn't get their head around the purpose of the opener, or its shape.
After skimming the article on milk jugs at the Smithsonian National History Museum and finding it wholly (or should that be 2 percentedly?) unsatisfactory, and furthermore finding that so-called collectors in the dairy collectibles niche are like so-called collectors in almost every other collectibles niche these days (that is, really just sellers calling themselves collectors, their sites purporting to be historical no more than sales sites with superficial historical trappings), the Curator started paging through old dairy trade mags in an attempt to learn his way into a timeline of milk bottles, caps, and openers.
Then he finally found a very cool site dedicated to the history of the Decoursey Dairy outside Leavenworth, Kansas, where they had all kinds of neat dairy history links, including this one on the History of Dairy Packaging, with just the kind of credible concise summary he was hoping for, when they said this...
"The first milk bottle was patented in the late 1870's, but they didn't gain widespread use in the delivery of milk until the second half of the 1880's. Pre-1900 milk bottles came in a variety of different sizes and styles and had closures made from glass or metal. Early milk bottles are generally found only in the northeastern states, their use didn't reach the Midwest until around the end of the 19th century. In 1889 the "Common Sense Milk Bottle" was patented. This bottle type had a built in ledge inside the mouth (called a cap seat) which held a cardboard disc (cap) used for closure. They had a cylindrical body and a fairly wide neck. By 1900, these bottles had become the industry standard, completely replacing those with other closure types."
...and the payoff...
"Early milk caps had to be pried out with a knife or special tool commonly called a pick (later milk caps had a tab to assist in their removal)."
While the Curator and the Acquisitions Dept are oldtimers and had milk delivered to their porch in Pennsylvania - not too far from St. Claire, as chance would have it, in glass bottles, the caps were foil, and they couldn't get their head around the purpose of the opener, or its shape.
After skimming the article on milk jugs at the Smithsonian National History Museum and finding it wholly (or should that be 2 percentedly?) unsatisfactory, and furthermore finding that so-called collectors in the dairy collectibles niche are like so-called collectors in almost every other collectibles niche these days (that is, really just sellers calling themselves collectors, their sites purporting to be historical no more than sales sites with superficial historical trappings), the Curator started paging through old dairy trade mags in an attempt to learn his way into a timeline of milk bottles, caps, and openers.
Then he finally found a very cool site dedicated to the history of the Decoursey Dairy outside Leavenworth, Kansas, where they had all kinds of neat dairy history links, including this one on the History of Dairy Packaging, with just the kind of credible concise summary he was hoping for, when they said this...
"The first milk bottle was patented in the late 1870's, but they didn't gain widespread use in the delivery of milk until the second half of the 1880's. Pre-1900 milk bottles came in a variety of different sizes and styles and had closures made from glass or metal. Early milk bottles are generally found only in the northeastern states, their use didn't reach the Midwest until around the end of the 19th century. In 1889 the "Common Sense Milk Bottle" was patented. This bottle type had a built in ledge inside the mouth (called a cap seat) which held a cardboard disc (cap) used for closure. They had a cylindrical body and a fairly wide neck. By 1900, these bottles had become the industry standard, completely replacing those with other closure types."
...and the payoff...
"Early milk caps had to be pried out with a knife or special tool commonly called a pick (later milk caps had a tab to assist in their removal)."
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Private Lugnutz
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What no site showed or explained was how the dang thing was used and why it was shaped like a countersink. @LesserSon and @four.cycle helped us out with patents, but they're Design patents and don't bother with any technical detail other than proclaiming their ornamental novelty.
Our milk bottle opener appears to be a combination of two Sommer patents, combining the style of handle found on buttonhooks "or similar articles"...
...such as these...
...and this patent for a combined bottle opener and pick.
.
Our milk bottle opener appears to be a combination of two Sommer patents, combining the style of handle found on buttonhooks "or similar articles"...
...such as these...
...and this patent for a combined bottle opener and pick.
.
four.cycle
Well-known member
^ Excellent. While digging around I saw "common sense bottle" but went right by it because it wasn't what I was looking for!
Now I'm curious as to why it would require a tool to remove the cap - obviously not the same bottle as what I grew up with!
List of Sommer's patents here for the curious:
Now I'm curious as to why it would require a tool to remove the cap - obviously not the same bottle as what I grew up with!
List of Sommer's patents here for the curious:
OP
Private Lugnutz
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Armed with all that and our trade mag finds, we think we backed our way into thinking that it was a flat stab-and-pry action. Regardless, you may be surprised and enjoy learning how many other designs there were for getting a simple cap out of the cap seat of a recessed glass bottle opening.
Pic 1, from 1911, is a rather ingenious design by Windsor Stephens Company in Waltham, Mass. You use the hook underneath the stopper to stab and pry off the cardboard cap, and then you have the stopper for the bottle.
Pic 2, from 1913, is also a Windsor Stephens device branded "the Dainty". It has a flat prong on the bottom that you slide into the cardboard cap, then lift. But it stays on like a handle for the cap that can now be re-used instead of discarded.
The Sibley "Pic-Top" from 1923 in Pic 3 takes a similar approach of combining an opener and a lid and seems to incorporate the Sommers pick.
Don't miss the clever The Old Way ("handicap") and The New Way ("the Handycap") images in the ca. 1924 combo opener/cap in Pic 4.
Just an opener in Pic 5 (also from 1924)
And last but not least, my favorite approach, from 1925. Just make your own milk bottle cap opener out of a hacksaw blade!
See Pic 6.
Pic 1, from 1911, is a rather ingenious design by Windsor Stephens Company in Waltham, Mass. You use the hook underneath the stopper to stab and pry off the cardboard cap, and then you have the stopper for the bottle.
Pic 2, from 1913, is also a Windsor Stephens device branded "the Dainty". It has a flat prong on the bottom that you slide into the cardboard cap, then lift. But it stays on like a handle for the cap that can now be re-used instead of discarded.
The Sibley "Pic-Top" from 1923 in Pic 3 takes a similar approach of combining an opener and a lid and seems to incorporate the Sommers pick.
Don't miss the clever The Old Way ("handicap") and The New Way ("the Handycap") images in the ca. 1924 combo opener/cap in Pic 4.
Just an opener in Pic 5 (also from 1924)
And last but not least, my favorite approach, from 1925. Just make your own milk bottle cap opener out of a hacksaw blade!
See Pic 6.Attachments
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Private Lugnutz
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Zackly! Nor we! Hence, the research. At first I was thinking the carboard cap in the recessed cap seat, as the sites call it, must have been sealed with wax or paraffin perhaps, but now I'm thinking they were just a tight fit. There was no way to lift them.
Outlawmws
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I remember having a tab and just pulling the cardboard plug out (and reusing it till empty.)
OP
Private Lugnutz
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Yup. That's what the dairy site is referring to here...
Uniquely unhelpful, the Wiki page for milk bottles erroneously shows my pick with one of the caps with the tabs. But the tabs, along with other cap designs (foil wrap, etc), is what made the tool obsolete.
Half-fast eddie
Well-known member
Consider this … the cardboard caps are a fraction larger diameter than the neck of the bottle. The cap is seated with a plunger, and attains a slightly concave (from the top side) shape, so when you try to remove it you are trying to make it flat, and the strength of the cardboard is resisting you.
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Private Lugnutz
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'Zackly!
The illustration of the aproned housewife jabbing away at it with "pick, fork, knife, fingers, etc" in the Handycap ad still cracks me up.
The illustration of the aproned housewife jabbing away at it with "pick, fork, knife, fingers, etc" in the Handycap ad still cracks me up.
d42jeep
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Bottles and tool from our kitchen display.
-Don
-Don
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Private Lugnutz
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Thanks, Don! By the looks of the bent tip on that pick, it looks like it was used on more than cardboard milk bottle caps in its time, but that's a very nice example of the later combo patent (D43,278), which I am sure you saw above in post #1,141. (Harding was an assignor to Sommer Mfg Co.) I haven't found an earlier Sommer patent for a milk bottle cap pick that is not combined with a beer or soda bottle opener. I tend to agree with @LesserSon and @four.cycle that the picks without the bottle opener in the handle, with the traditional buttonhook handle, are probably covered by the "or similar articles" catch-all of D48,015, but it's interesting that while Sommer submitted that one first (April 1912) it was not granted until 1915, while the Harding combo pick/opener patent was submitted (September) and granted just two months later (November) of the same year (1912)! Not that unusual for a Design patent. It's the timeline on the other one that is surprising.
Your post is also handy and instructive. The "Fresher by a day!" bottle (second from the left) is an example of the types of older bottles that needed a tool to pierce and lift the cardboard cap. You can see the recessed cap seat or ledge for the cap inside the mouth. The others are later, have no such ledge, and, in fact, have protrusions around the outside of the mouth that I am guessing are there for squeezing the malleable boundary of an exterior paper or foil cap around.
If you had a cap, you could give us a 3-Step (stab, lift, and remove) 3-Pic demo of that tool!
d42jeep
Well-known member
I believe that the beginnings of the collection was in place, including the tool, when we moved into the house, left to us by Grandpa Al. Since he was born in 1907, I’m sure that he was familiar with the tool‘s usage. We have found a few more bottles of local interest at various sales and added them to the others.
-Don
-Don
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Private Lugnutz
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I'm sure he was! Didn't mean to impugn Grandpa Al!
Hopefully you can see how it would be useful for picking and prying at things harder than cardboard milk bottle caps in a jiff, and, again, by the looks of it, probably was! That's a cool thing, in my book, about Grandpa Al, about all grandpa's everywhere, and about the utility of the tool, as well, not a bad thing.It's a neat collection - and please pass my compliments on to the Kitchen Annex partner in Don's Den of Dandy Delights-eum!
four.cycle
Well-known member
Private Lugnutz said:
The illustrations of the aproned housewife with a look of anguish on her face and her bleeding finger stuck in her mouth in some early can opener advertisements (Vaughan, Sommer, etc.) are hilarious.
Our bottles were like the later "Fitzgerald" or "Williams" bottles like those in Don's post above (#1149) and the caps were the round paper discs with the perforated thumb tab, as posted over in the "Garage Sale" thread earlier. No tools required. With four kids in the house, milk didn't "go stale" after being opened.
One of my earliest childhood memories is watching my older brother Rhett (who just passed away a couple weeks ago) coming in the back door, opening the refrigerator door (which was in the "laundry room" just off the kitchen), pulling out a quart of milk, removing the cap, and chugging the entire quart without stopping. No tools required. Good thing those caps were easy to remove with lots of hungry kids in the house.
RTM
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When I was a kid in the 60's, this is what our neighbors had, but the cardboard, when delivered to the house from a truck* chilled with ice, or a large overhead ice block, commonly got wet, and the tab pulled off in your hand. So they stabbed it with a paring knife.
*Kinda like this. The ones I drove in the 80s had an electric refrigeration unit which fed a giant chiller on the ceiling of the back, which would turn into a block of ice, dripping all over you and the load on a warm day. If they didn't have the chiller, they shoveled ice on top of the load, which led to a long day with cold hands as you grabbed a bottle or three to deliver.
You could stand up to drive
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We were without the cool engine
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Private Lugnutz
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We just assembled this handy evolution, shamelessly appropriated from eBay sales!
LEFT: bottles with recessed cardboard caps that required a tool to pierce and lift
MIDDLE: bottles with recessed cardboard caps that had a handy tab for pulling the cap up without the need for any tool
RIGHT: bottles with exterior caps made of malleable paper or foil that had a flat top, just like its predecessors, but wrapped around the outside the mouth. These latter were the bottles of our (Lugzsonian staff) youth (the aforementioned Hahn's Dairy of Bowmanstown, PA!).
LEFT: bottles with recessed cardboard caps that required a tool to pierce and lift
MIDDLE: bottles with recessed cardboard caps that had a handy tab for pulling the cap up without the need for any tool
RIGHT: bottles with exterior caps made of malleable paper or foil that had a flat top, just like its predecessors, but wrapped around the outside the mouth. These latter were the bottles of our (Lugzsonian staff) youth (the aforementioned Hahn's Dairy of Bowmanstown, PA!).
four.cycle
Well-known member
addendum:
I would not so doggedly pursue the oddballs like "Sommer" were it not for the "novelty" manufacturers being responsible for the making of all sorts of widgets, including (but not limited to) being contracted for military equipment during wartime. (e.g., Vaughan)
I would not so doggedly pursue the oddballs like "Sommer" were it not for the "novelty" manufacturers being responsible for the making of all sorts of widgets, including (but not limited to) being contracted for military equipment during wartime. (e.g., Vaughan)
OP
Private Lugnutz
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Understood. As a general notice and warning, our interest is already waning and we have no intention of making milk bottle openers (or their kissin cousin buttonhooks) a major display let alone a wing. But it was a fun foray more or less prompted by the unusual shape of the pick.
Half-fast eddie
Well-known member
Looking at the view looking down, the middle bottle appears to have a ledge.
OP
Private Lugnutz
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Could be. Hard to tell. I'm not interested in dating Don's and Mrs. Don's milk bottle collection. Just using at least one of them to show why a tool was needed to stab and lift the early tab-less caps.
OP
Private Lugnutz
Well-known member
When I posted a little WWI display (leather-clad smoking pipe, fence pliers, French primer, and molten toy soldier) upthread, here, and some TBD fraternal society looking pins with similar crowns that I still have not identified, here, I probably alluded to something like 'Marie's Defunct Junque Shop' - my shorthand way of describing my deceased MIL's old antique shop inventory, stored in their house for decades when they went out of business. My wife has been slowly picking through it with the passing of her step-dad, and I previously showed some of the pickings she brought home for me on the GS thread here, here, here, and here, and a little more here, if anyone really wants more context.
Some of you may remember me talking way about my grandfather, Little Johnny, who was the foreman of a track gang on a stretch of the Chestnut Ridge Railway linking the east and west plants of the NJ Zinc Company on either side of the town I grew up in, here, and the pen-and-ink drawing of a locomotive they presented to him when he retired, which I now own.
Well, she did it again, bringing home another railroad track profile for me today. Lord knows where her mom got these cross-sections or why she had them in her shop, but it was that kind of place. One is a "T" Rail dated 1903 and the new sample is a Box Rail dated 1893. Which makes me wonder if she's going to find a rail from 1883 and 1913 soon.
No marriage is perfect, and ours, going on 40 years, still has its rough spots - but simple gestures like this sure help keep it alive.
Some of you may remember me talking way about my grandfather, Little Johnny, who was the foreman of a track gang on a stretch of the Chestnut Ridge Railway linking the east and west plants of the NJ Zinc Company on either side of the town I grew up in, here, and the pen-and-ink drawing of a locomotive they presented to him when he retired, which I now own.
Well, she did it again, bringing home another railroad track profile for me today. Lord knows where her mom got these cross-sections or why she had them in her shop, but it was that kind of place. One is a "T" Rail dated 1903 and the new sample is a Box Rail dated 1893. Which makes me wonder if she's going to find a rail from 1883 and 1913 soon.
No marriage is perfect, and ours, going on 40 years, still has its rough spots - but simple gestures like this sure help keep it alive.
