What is it? Set 347

[Rob H.]

For some reason my news server wasn't working properly so I had to post through Google groups today.

[Snag]

1995 is a still and condenser coil - might be for moonshine , it's about the right size for a small operation .

[joelblatt]

1994 front of an old parking meter.... Joel in Rust Central

[RicodJour]

1993. It's too big to be for sharpening pencils, so it must be for sharpening dowels. For what purpose, I don't know - if you asked someone's Mom, she'd say, "You'll poke your eye out with that!" 1994. Parking meter face plate. 1995. A still. 1996. A clock (the other clocks in the background are giveaways), but it's pretty obvious. 1997. Something for setting elevations for siting. 1998. Not sure. R

[Doug Miller]

Ah, yes. I had said "front sight for a hunting bow" but I think now that was incorrect. I still think it's the front sight for a bow, but it's for use by a competition archer, not a hunter.

[Rob H.]

Correct, it's from an old Majestic radio.

Rob

[Rob H.]

Good guess! You're on the right track here.

Rob

[Michael Kenefick]

[Rob H.]

Nope, it wasn't for use with bricks.

[Steve R.]

Correct, it's from an old Majestic radio.

Rob

That's why it looked familiar! As a kid, we had a Rogers Majestic console radio in the living room.

Steve R.

[r7h8]

You're not far off, it wasn't for dowels but was used by a particular type of farmer.

Rob

[riverman]

Maybe to sharpen the ends of tree boughs for grafting? Apples, maybe?

--riverman

[DoN. Nichols]

Perhaps for cutting sugar cane at an angle to make extracting the sugar easier?

Enjoy, DoN.

[DoN. Nichols]

At a guess -- so it would take up less space in the garbage dump.

Or perhaps to provide raw material (glass fragments of various colors) for making a mosaic or a Tiffany style lampshade? The colors readily available were clear, brown, and green, with less common being white and blue. I know someone who at least used to make stained glass artwork -- though I don't know what his sources were.

After all -- the making of art is often the explanation for otherwise illogical actions. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

[Robert Bonomi]

Yup. Liquor taxes. In many jurisdictions, places that served alcoholic beverages 'by the drink' were *required* by law to break up the empties.

It seems that a _lot_ of people find it nearly irresistible to re-fill such bottles with variants on 'shine', and pass it off as legit, since the bottle _has_ the tax stamps on it.

[DoN. Nichols]

This reminds me of when I spent a summer in Guyaquil Ecuador, back around 1959. The honey (miel) from the marketplace would come in various shaped bottles which had molded into them -- in English -- "Federal law prohibits reuse of this bottle." :-)

Do booze bottles still have that? Since I don't drink hard liquor, I don't know.

Enjoy, DoN.

[J Burns]

It was required from 1932 to 1964.

[Robert Bonomi]

Any number of local jurisdictions required it for many years after the Federal law change. There were state taxes as well as Federal ones.