文章基本信息

标题：Letters
期刊名称：The Chronicle of the Early American Industries Association
印刷版ISSN：0012-8147
出版年度：2002
卷号：Dec 2002
出版社：the Early American Industries Association

Letters

Shedding Light on a Glasscrate

I was interested to note Mr. Elton Hall's description of some packing boxes for glass lights (The Chronicle, Vol. 54, No. 4, December 2001), as some years back I saw a number of similar boxes (not Japanese or Taiwanese crates) being used for firewood in a workshop in southern Virginia. These boxes contained the remainders of full boxes of lights, which had been sent to rural areas as replacements. But, I wonder, did they send any sprigs or putty?

A good description of the box contents is given in the Mulliner Box and Planing Company of Chicago catalog of 1893, on page 267 (Figure 1), which is copied from the Wholesale Sash, Door and Blind Manufacturers Association, but to which is added the glass tariff

Glass for domestic (residential) purposes was packaged or boxed in fifty-- square-foot quantities in crates, irrespective of light size, up to 130 united (length plus width) inches. Apparently 46 x 64 inches was the largest crated size, and the larger sizes may have contained only three lights (glass squares) per package or box. Some larger sizes seem to have been greater than fifty square feet, but this could be a required price adjustment.

According to the lists, the price of full boxes was not much cheaper than single panes, but I suspect that there were trade discounts much as there are now. (Compare the Figure 1 price list to Figure 3).

The boxes I remember seem to have been marked as Mr. Hall's box (Figures 2a and b), with the size of lights (6 x 8 inches) and the number of lights (150), required to total fifty square feet as well as the strength, double, (2).

The qualities of glass in 1890 were listed as Aa (silvering or mirror), A, B, and C (Figure 3). The low-grade C was probably a horticultural glass for use its greenhouses and available in small sizes only.

The charges for boxes over a certain size-one hundred united inches-rose rapidly at $10 for each additional five united inches (Figure 1). It would seem from the price lists that a box for 46 x 64 inches with three squares would cost $60.00.

The additional price sheets (Figure 3) giving the prices of single squares are included to show that things are not always cheaper by the dozen or, in this instance, by the fifty square feet.

Yours (panefully),

Autolycus Smith