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Post by pooka on May 16, 2011 18:35:30 GMT -5
It's not technically mine. I got it from my cousin two doors down. He got some water in his basement last week & he was carrying stuff out to dry out. I asked if I could take it home to clean it up & glue the wood base back together & put it in my kitchen to admire, he said OK. It's my great grandpa's coffee grinder from their store. My cousin quotes my uncle saying that they bought it in 1901. That would be the year my grandmother was born. The patent date on it is July 12, 98. The paint, pin striping & decals are all original, & just dirty. I remember grandma & my uncle used it to grind corn for the birds.
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Post by 58limited on May 16, 2011 19:50:49 GMT -5
Those old coffee grinders are neat. Congrats on the acquisition.
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Post by cinnabar on May 16, 2011 19:51:31 GMT -5
That is soooo sweet. Nice that it will be out of the basement and where you and others can admire it. In my family we feel the same about many objects from our past. It is nice to share them indeed!
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Post by pooka on May 16, 2011 20:25:45 GMT -5
I was glad to get it away from him before his ill-treatment of it did any permanent damage to it. ;D
I just finished lightly sanding the wood base pieces & glued them back together. Tomorrow I'll scrap the excess glue off the joints & sand again lightly then apply some paste wax. I'll have to take a damp rag & wipe it down. As you see it, I just brushed the dirt off with a paint brush. I have to make sure I don't remove to much of the patina, just burnish it a little. ;D
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Post by lwagne on May 16, 2011 21:25:06 GMT -5
That is great!! Larry and I have an old one like that and it still works perfectly. You can even adjust the grind with a knob on the side that adjusts the space between the grinding stones!! Wonderful piece. Take it out and use it!
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Post by FatFutures on May 17, 2011 9:45:03 GMT -5
VERY NICE! Is that an Enterprise? Depending on the size (there should be a number on it), that piece is worth a penny or two!
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Post by pooka on May 17, 2011 9:59:38 GMT -5
Glue scraped, surface sanded, wax applied, & exterior wiped down. It's as cleaned up as I'm gonna get it. I used it to grind coffee this morning, how cool is that. I loaded the hopper with one pots worth of beans & closed the top. I then opened the gate to let the beans fall down to the business part of the grinder with a tinkle tinkle. ;D Six cranks was all it took to do what my little grinder takes one hundred. ;D Now I get to time travel back 100 years every time I make coffee. ;D I get such enjoyment out of the little things in life that most people don't notice or care about. ;D I need to find a heavy floor stand to bolt it down to. As big & heavy as it is, when you turn those big wheels, it still wants to move around on you.
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Post by pooka on May 17, 2011 10:05:05 GMT -5
FatFutures, Yes, it is an Enterprise. I think it's a No. 7. You can just barely see where the number is painted on the drawer front but, it's really hard to see. I saw one this week at an antique mall that they were asking $995.00 for. Not that it's important to me. No amount of money could buy it from me.
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Post by lwagne on May 17, 2011 12:48:18 GMT -5
We used ours every day too until we moved to a house that was too small for it. My son-in-law coveted it so much and they bought our old house, she stayed where she was. Ours had been repainted somewhere in her past, so she is not so nice. Watch that patina - it's priceless
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Post by pooka on May 17, 2011 14:22:23 GMT -5
I have admired it from the first time I saw my uncle & grandma grind seed corn for the birds when I was a child. I've always loved old stuff. ;D I've watched it bounce around my cousins back porch, garage & basement. I never wanted to impose by asking if I could have it. I thought would be asking too much. But after carrying it out of a flooded basement, I had to ask for shear preservation sake. It pains me to see old treasures from the past being neglected & allowed to rot away in a dark corner. It's the same way I felt when I first laid eyes on my 1885 dry-sink piled high with junk in that old carriage house I was clearing out for a lady. I tried not to jump for joy when she said that I could take it too. ;D But that's why so much of this stuff is prized by some of us special people who value it. Like our old stoves, most of them were simply thrown away. But unlike some others I preserve it cause it's cool & not because it's valuable.
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Post by Chuckie on May 17, 2011 15:23:07 GMT -5
I am S-O-O-O-O GLAD I don't drink coffee---Pooka would have me on yet ANOTHER search for one of THOSE now out of grinder envy!
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Post by oldsalt on May 17, 2011 18:51:57 GMT -5
Beautiful piece, Pooka! And a family heirloom to boot!!! I just have to offer, if you need space, there is a place on the counter right next to my La Pavoni Europiccola espresso press where it would fit right in and get loving twice-daily use. ;^) You may want to find or have some clips made for bolting that thing down. Anything to preserve the wood... I just get giddy when I find things that still work - and many better than anything new - that can be re-commissioned and kept along with our heritage!
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Post by pooka on May 18, 2011 2:59:55 GMT -5
I could never part with it. I use it to time travel, like some of the other special pieces I have that I know some of the history of. When I use this grinder, I think of how proud my great grandfather must have been to have such a fancy coffee mill in his store. And who were his customer & what were they talking about in the early 1900's when it was new. I could go on with that one all day. Let's just say it sparks my imagination. ;D My 1885 dry-sink speaks to me in the same way. I know the affluent house it was original to was built that year. I know the pan was replaced with a drawer & new top around 1900 from the different style of the porcelain knobs & the hand written instructions on the underside of the top telling the carpenter what to do. It's like a puzzle to unwind & a context in time & place to contemplate. You know, time traveling in your mind. But there I go philosophizing again. ;D To bad there isn't a big market for free lance philosophers.
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Post by pooka on May 19, 2011 9:21:47 GMT -5
Here's a picture of my great grandfather in his rural bread delivery truck from the 20's. He's the one that bought this coffee mill new for his store in 1901.
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Post by dugbug on May 26, 2011 8:59:40 GMT -5
Awesome photograph! Thanks for sharing!
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Post by lwagne on May 26, 2011 19:10:21 GMT -5
Boy, as Roaring River Bread, we are COVETING that bread truck. Can you imagine showing up at a Farmer's Market with that?? I wonder if I could figure out a way to print it. I want to hang it in our bakery - and covet it!!!
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Post by pooka on May 27, 2011 1:20:54 GMT -5
If your interested, the body was made locally by a company called Hercules Buggy Co. that opened in 1902. If you PM me your email I can send you a larger format file I have of it. It was scanned from an original negative I have at a print shop my brother works for. They touched up a chip in the negative on the front of the rear wheel. I think the scan is 15.4" x 11". If you don't have a printer, you could send it to someone you know that does to print it for you.
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Post by Chuckie on May 27, 2011 8:47:00 GMT -5
I have a 1919 Model T 1-ton pickup that my Da & I redid while I was still in high school. It has an oak cab/bed finished natural; the bed is just an open bed w/sides--kinda looks like a buckboard. Currently, the engine needs overhauled, and it is sitting in the back garage where I DON'T have Chambers' stored!!! I'd like to make a depot hack out of it someday if I ever got the $$$.... What is interesting about the Model T is that the driver's door was a "dummy" door--it was NOT hinged, and it clipped on. You COULD remove it if you wanted, but you entered/exited from the passenger side, which WAS hinged. Reason being the steering column comes almost right up to your chest and the emergency brake is smack dab in the center of the opening, so they block the doorway. However, the old man that taught me to drive it showed me how you just threw your right leg up over the steering wheel and plopped right down in the seat! The Model T had a transmission that you worked with your feet--three pedals--the one on the left was high/low, the middle reverse, and the right the brake. The gas/spark are two levers up on the steering column. You put the emergency brake in the center position--the brake was "off", but a yoke held the high/low pedal in a "neutral" position. You pushed down on the pedal & pulled down on the gas/spark levers to go in "low"; if you wanted to QUIT moving, you just let off the pedal, and the brake arm in half-way held it in neutral. When you got to top speed in "low", you just shoved the emergency brake arm all the way forward, and it would allow the pedal to come all the way out so it could go to "high". My truck also has a "Ford Jumbo Giant" rear end in it--four speeds plus reverse. That made it a nine speed auto--because the high/low pedal on the floor made each of the rear transmission's gears a "high" first and a "low" first, 2nd, 3rd etc. Interestingly, the LOWEST gear on it was you put the rear transmission in reverse, then stepped on the reverse pedal on the front transmission. The two reverses worked against one another, and the truck would then move FORWARD at a snails pace! Confused now? Try learning to DRIVE one!! LOL Thank GOD that old man that used to drive one until the 1960's was still alive to teach ME! I googled "Model T Hack" to show you what they look like. Here's a "you tube" showing one. Near the end, you'll see a dog sitting in the REMOVED DOOR driver's doorway. Notice the emergency break/steering column blocking the entrance as described: www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2_xEBQW97o&feature=related
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Post by pooka on May 27, 2011 11:25:33 GMT -5
My dad was born in 1919. I've heard him describe going down the road with both ears down in a model T when we saw one at a fair once. It sound way to complicated to me. I wonder if your truck body was made here. According the the website below, Ford didn't make trucks between 1913 & 1924. "A 1921 Hercules advertisement boasted that they were the largest builder of truck bodies in the world, with a staff of 7500 producing over 40,000 truck cabs and bodies per year." Many of their buildings are still there. It's called the Morton Avenue Warehouse today. Your brother in the shipping business might be familiar with it. At one time we were a manufacturing giant because of our central location on the Ohio river & railroads. Not so much any more. www.mdhllc.com/www.coachbuilt.com/bui/h/hercules/hercules.htm
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Post by Chuckie on May 27, 2011 14:03:30 GMT -5
Ford may not have made the bodies, but they made the vehicles, as the title on my truck says 1919, and the number on the block matches the 1919 "T" serial numbers: www.mtfca.com/encyclo/sernos.htmThere are several 1919 Model T items currently on sale on eBay as well. It was said he farmed out the transmissions too. One company was VERY excited to get the contract, and the owner stopped in a month or so later to ask Henry Ford how his transmission were working out. Ford told him the transmissions were GREAT, but he had a problem w/the crating. The guy was like for heavens sakes, whats wrong. Ford gave him a drawing of how he wanted the crates made--certain size and weird holes cut in them. The guy thought it odd, but for the big $$ he was making on the transmissions, he changed his crate as directed. MONTHS later, he came back to the Ford factory, and saw his transmissions being unloaded and VERY CAREFULLY uncrated w/rubber mallets & pry bars. Seems two of the sides were perfect for the floorboards--to include cutouts for the pedals--and one was used for the bottom of the seat!!! Henry squeezed that buffalo for all it was worth!!
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Post by lwagne on May 27, 2011 16:29:50 GMT -5
Oh my gosh, Chuckie. Be still my heart!! You need to go back in the bread business!!! with that TRUCK
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Post by Chuckie on May 27, 2011 21:50:58 GMT -5
THAT truck pictured is NOT like mine is NOW--just how I WANT it to be. I'll search for a pic of mine & post it. IF only it had been up and RUNNING back when Monkey was in the bread business, bet we'd of cleaned UP!!! We made a sign on it for the 1994 St. Patrick's Day Parade--we got married 4/9 that year in County Kerry Ireland. The sign said "Tralee or Bust!" Well, bust it was, as I live on a STEEP hill, and the truck made it 1/2 way up, before I had to put it in the double reverse "low" to get it the rest of the way, as we were on like ONE cylinder that was working. I DID manage to get it in the garage, and it has set there since 3/17/1994! I told my mechanic brother AND my nephew who is also so gifted, that IF they would overhaul it--at MY expense--I would sign the title over as "P.O.D" in their name. I would keep the truck HERE, pay insurance, taxes, etc., and they could drive it whenever, but when I DIED, it would be theirs. Guess they think I'm gonna live FOREVER, as neither of them took me up on it...
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Post by pooka on May 28, 2011 13:53:11 GMT -5
Chuckie, perhaps your brother & your nephew are not as wise & generous as you. If it were me, I wouldn't be able to get my tools out quickly enough. ;D We all have our prize's. Not everyone values them as highly as we do. That doesn't mean they aren't of value. It just means we have different perspective on things. Some of us try to make sure that the best of the past lives on to benefit & inform the future eyes & minds. But now I'm philosophizing again. ;D All we can do is the best we can. The rest is up to posterity.
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Post by lwagne on May 28, 2011 15:21:02 GMT -5
Wow, Chucke - all those Chamberses AND that truck - your garage is going to be empty some day and those dogs in funny hats are not going to scare me ;D ;D
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