One year ago today: April 9, 2016, 100+ years old.
Five years ago today: April 9, 2012, could that woman write!
Nine years ago today: April 9, 2008, Marion moves to Denver.
Random years ago today: April 9, 2007, I dunno cat anatomy.
Here’s your mystery object. I’ve mentioned it around a week ago, but can you tell what it is by looking? Hint, I mistook it for an arrowhead mold. It would not be used as shown here, rather it would be closed up and only opened like this when the process was complete.
Having said that, the topic has opened a real styrofoam cup of worms. Everybody wants in on the action. Is that what they mean by gold fever? It should be done for the adventure, guys, not the profit. The only attractive aspect around here is that the matter is far more likely to be approached systematically due to association with the club. The club is gone, defunct, no more than a figure of speech. But the ability to operate the club for five years, that will always count.
So, take a moment and reflect what’s been learned. Because it is this learning alone that can keep me interested. You bet I intend to continue the research. September through May, the Florida weather is infinitely more clement than the west coast mountain wilderness. What I’m curious about this week is, if gold is found, what happens next? What prices does raw gold command? Where is it sold? Who looks after all this? What equipment is needed?
One thing I’ve learned is I already, in this short space, know more about processing the gold than the rest of the guys. But that’s a fancy way of saying they don’t know a thing. I learned plenty. Like the fact that JZ, despite his medical training, has never worked in a laboratory. This came to light when it appeared I was the only who noticed in the videos the laboratory-like settings in the background of the operations that recovered the most gold. For that matter, around here I am the only one who has ever seen or owned meaningful quantities of gold.
Money in Zimbabwe.
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First, something you haven’t seen before. But that’s one reason you like this blog. You get views of new things without a specialized blog that goes out it's way to blast you with them. Naw, here you get the ordinary man's pace of new material. This is an unweighed ingot of nickel alloy, bearing the name Tuftin. It isn’t clear, but the other lettering says HIGH TEST and specifies Jackson-Wheeler Metals Inc, Brooklyn 7, N.Y. On the back is an imprint, the diamond shape with two dots bearing the number 73. Of course, if you can be of any help identifying this object, please leave a comment. It won’t be published, but it will land directly on my desk.
[Author's note: once again, there is no Internet information on a simple search to determine what the marks on the back of metal ingots mean. Except for English hallmarks, but that was no help here. I was able to determine the mark meant Alloy Number 73, a mix of tin, toughened with nickel. So essentially, this is a bar of solder.]
On this trip, I didn’t take the book I’m reading, “Peaches & Daddy”. Instead, I read a bit more about the rise of the tabloids. What I found did not surprise me. At around 1900, there was a marked difference in reading habits. The younger generations had begun attending schools on a regular basis and could often read books that their parents could not. Keep that in mind. Also, international news service was in its infancy, so what newspapers did exist carried a larger proportion of local news. The telegraph had still not reached the smaller towns.
Have you ever met anyone who could not read? I have. It’s like dealing with a semi-retarded six-year-old who cannot and will not hear anything but what he wants. The guy cannot read his own paycheck, but he is the foreman. The one common characteristic that all non-readers have is they are totally opinionated gossips. You can see where this is going.
By 1920, the illiteracy rate had fallen from 11% to 4% of the total population. But this doesn’t reflect how this represents a huge shift in age. Among the young, the literacy rate was close to zero, while in people over 18, the rate ran as high as 40% on average, and could be close to twice that in smaller and more isolated communities. People make a big deal out of how many men were out of work during the Great Depression. What I want to know is how many of them could not read. Because you get much the same cause and effect today. There is no unemployment amongst skilled labor.
So, what could be better than tabloids? A cheap, smaller newspaper with more pictures than words, focused on other people and totally filled with juicy tidbits. The same must have happened in England, if you’ve ever seen their version of the ‘loids. They love sticking it to the royals. And just like America, it takes a sizeable underclass of uneducated rumormongers to sustain this grade of journalism. Most American tabloids originated in Florida.
During the research, I found you some trivia. Do you know why so many of the taller Manhattan skyscrapers are pyramid or steeple-shaped at the top? The first skyscrapers were straight up to the top floor, but city artists and health officials, those known powerhouses of intellectual capacity, complained. The buildings, they said, were blocking “light and air” from reaching the streets. So an ordinance was passed that upper stories had to be set back from the vertical walls. Architects love such regulations.
“My bedroom curtains are drawn
but the rest of the furniture is real.”
ADDENDUM
The mystery object is a lead mold for those pyramid-shaped weights used on fishing lines. I actually own some that were used for various robot spring testing.
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