Hello from Hazard!
Another week brings more responses on Item No. 664, the wire basket-type item that folds flat.
Readers weighing in this week on the side of the item being an egg basket are: Kathy Wagner of Spring City, Tenn.; Hugh Pallister, Willoughby, Ohio; and Mark Wasick, Copley, Ohio.
And in the other corner are readers who say the basket was used in the kitchen to serve bread of rolls. With this answer, we heard from Anna Dorner of Mansfield, Ohio, and Kathy McConnell of New Castle, Pa.
McConnell says hers bears a little rectangular metal piece marked with the word “Germany.” When flat, she says it’s a cooling rack; and she remembers her mother putting a linen napkin in it as a basket to serve rolls. (Her sisters remember it for storing eggs, fruit and onions; her son remembers his grandmother using the basket to put colored grass and Easter eggs in it.)
Maybe, as McConnell suggests, it’s a little of both answers – part egg basket, part bread basket. After all, we are an ingenious people and found ways to use items other than the original intent.
Thanks to everyone who shared their insight.
Item No. 665. There’s no waffling with our answers to Item No. 665, which we first spotlighted last week. It is a pair of pipe tongs, with the one end used to pick up hot coals to light a tobacco pipe, and the other end was used to tamp the tobacco in the pipe bowl.
Our thanks to readers Tom Kearns of Scenery Hill, Pa., and Les Howell of Beach City, Ohio, who promptly responded with their correct answers. Thanks also to H. Harold Mitchell of Pittsburgh for sharing the item with Hazard readers. Mr. Mitchell drove all the way to Farm and Dairy offices in Salem, Ohio, from his home in Pittsburgh to bring the item in to be photographed. (OK, well, he was also taking a clock to Damascus for repair and was interested in an auction in Salem the same day, but we appreciate the time he shared with us.)
Mark Wasick of Copley sent in this week’s tool, which he says was used on a farm in Minnesota. Alas, its owner does not know what it was used for. Anyone want to hazard a guess?
Send your answers to: Hazard a Guess, P.O. Box 38, Salem, OH 44460, or via e-mail: editorial@farmanddairy.com. We’ll be looking for your letters.
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