The millionth Soviet radiola!

Nikolai Mikhailov.  Discovering the Soviet Union.  Moscow:  Progress Publishers, 1965.

An inspector checks the millionth radiola produced by the VEF Electrical Engineering Plant in Riga.

"Comrades!  We must ensure that it cannot pick up the degenerate American rock-and-roll!"

The VEF  firm (Latvian for Valsts elektrotehniskā fabrika or State Electrotechnical Factory) was one of the largest in the former Soviet Union.  Beginning in 1919, it went on to produce, among other things, the famous subminiature Minox spy camera, computers, one of the world's first monoplanes and even a motorcycle, the Pandera, whose 1937 design included an electric starter.  The company failed following the collapse of the Soviet Union.  It's beautiful factory in Riga is now an arts centre.

For more information, visit VEF:  The Rise and Fall of a Latvian Industrial Legend.

Anti-First Nations Propaganda, 1920's

The Story of the British People.  A Reader for Pupils in Form III of the Public Schools.  Revised Edition.  Thomas Nelson & Sons. Ltd., Toronto, 1924.

The Canadian Educator for Home and School Use, Volume 3.  Toronto:  The Iroquois Press, 1929.

Reading this, it's hard to imagine how they managed to survive for all those tens of thousands of years before white folks showed up to enlighten them.

Sidecar Sunday

WW1 Russian T18 tanks

Lt Col. Robert J. Icks, Tanks and Armoured Vehicles.  Phillip Andrews Pub. 1945

We used to make things in this country. #171: Elder's Ginger Ale

I like old wooden crates, and have saved more than a few over the past decades.  Aside from their own sake, they're really handy for carrying kindling to my wood stove.

This one was intended to carry bottles of Elder's Ginger Ale.  Other than the fact that the company was out of Ontario, and that its product was truly gingery,  I can't find any other information on it.

The musical clinking of glass bottles being transported in a wooden box has been replaced by, well, nothing.  PET bottles shrink-wrapped in plastic film don't make any sound.  Mind you, they don't break either.  So, while something has been gained, something has been lost.  That's the usual equation for progress in our society.

When I was a kid, on his back porch my grandfather had a huge Seven Up pop cooler, a left-over from his Toronto restaurant.  You lifted a folding lid on top, and inside was a galvanized container in which the glass bottles resided up to their necks in cold water.  I can remember him lifting us out two bottles, cold water running down them, and the hiss as he uncapped them in the opener on the side, which was housed at the top of a removable metal blister for holding the bottle caps. On the side of the cooler was stenciled, "Seven Up. You like it,  it likes you."  I don't think I've ever had a better soft drink experience since.

Millers Falls Dyno-Mite Power Plane

Back before hobbyists enjoyed large enough discretionary incomes to afford a variety of single-purpose tools, several manufacturers offered these at attachments for your power drill or an interchangeable motor.  This is a planer produced by Millers Falls. It's interesting because, unlike portable planers today, this one is more like a stationary jointer:  it came equipped with a fence which could be adjusted for beveling, as well as a spring-loaded guard over the spiral cutting head.  Rather than being designed to use with a power drill, it seems that this tool would have had its own removable motor, which could be used in other similar attachments made by this manufacturer.  (I'd be grateful for any information on what this motor looks like, and how it attached to the tool.)

Update July 7, 2015:  Yesterday I picked up a copy of John G. Shea's book, Woodworking for Everybody (Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1944, Fourth Edition 1970) with the photo below:

It turns out it was designed for use with an electric drill after all!  I still don't understand how it was attached, because if it's clamped to the chuck the whole tool will rotate!

Porter-Cable had their own version:

Manual of Home Repairs, Remodeling and Maintenance.  Grosset & Dunlap, 1969.

Popular Science, December 1957

Technically, this tool is known as a "power plane", versions of which were offered by various tool companies.  Below, from Willis H. Wagner, Modern Carpentry.  (The Goodheart-Willcox Co., Inc., 1973).

New York City Omnibus 1937

Sophie Lilienthal; Sails, Wheels and Wings, The story of Transportation; Grosset and Dunlap 1937

Pretty fancy!

Looks like a Chevrolet of approximately 1915-1919. Someone will hopefully email in with some identifying detail. 
I wonder what the occasion is. The guys are pretty dapper for a couple of country boys, maybe it's a wedding!

The 'Glasgow' Farm Tractor

W.G.V. Balchin (Consultant Editor).  The Country Life Book of the Living History of England.  Country Life Books, 1981.

Produced for only 5 years between 1919 and 1924, the Glasgow was Scotland's only indigenous tractor.  For more information, click here.

Options included a heated haggis holder, as well as an ingenious bagpipe attachment. Try ta' improve on that, ye pewling Dunvegan gowks!

"Lift the Dot" fastener tool

I found this tool recently, initially thinking it was a particularly robust file handle:  

When I cleaned it up, though, this was stamped on the steel end, which is actually a hex socket of a peculiar size:

It says: Carre Company.  "Lift the Dot."  It was clearly intended as a driver for the specialized "Dot" fasteners made by the Carr Fastener Company of Cambridge, Massachusetts.  The driver exactly fits the fasteners shown below.

The firm eventually becamed United-Carr.  I've put more information about that company's history on a previous post on Dudley Locks.  The question in my mind is why is the name spelled "Carre" on this earlier tool?

Another curiosity:  I discovered that I have an old grease gun made by this company, when they apparently had a plant in Hamilton, Ontario.  I've never seen any information that they made anything other than fasteners.