Posted 5 years ago
Simonc
(162 items)
A great find which I bought for a song. It was under a pile of junk in a box I was rummaging through and happen to catch sight of it, just before I was about to give up the ghost and walk away. It was covered in a think layer of dust and what felt like grease stains, but after a thorough 'dustoration' (© Simonc) , it came up looking very smart indeed.
Although there's a few wear marks, the ashtray itself is solid and undamaged. The material it's made from, is I think aluminium (it's extremely light and feels like the blue BOAC one I alreadyhave). I've been after this ashtray for a while to add to my Capstan collection, so I'm really chuffed to have finally bagged one.
Hi buddy and thanks. By way of background, I was given a stunning Bakelite and wood ashtray about five years ago, it was promoting a freight company and to me, it looked absolutely stunning. (I've actually featured it on one of my posts a while back), and from that day, I decided I'm going to start collecting them. Although I am a smoker, it wasn't the cigarette connection that drew me to them, it was the variety and the fact that so many of them, like you mentioned above, bring back memories of childhood and teenage years. The more I collected, the more it became a mission to preserve a bit of modern history seen as they simply weren't around anymore.
Obviously I'm not condoning smoking in any way but nevertheless, once this stuff disappears, it'll be something else that's vanished from history which in my opinion would be a great shame.
Actually, this collecting thing reminds me of a visit I made with my sons to a HMV shop in Leeds while I was in the UK last Christmas. Both of them are in their early twenties and while I was digging around for a couple of DVDs I wanted, I vividly remember the look of astonishment on their faces while they hung around waiting for me. The idea of a retail shop selling DVDs and CDs was completely alien to them, they simply didn't get it. For them, 'shopping' meant logging on to Amazon, finding what they wanted and pressing a button to confirm. Driving to a city centre, parking the car, walking to the shop then browsing seemed entirely pointless, expensive and a complete waste of their time.
Apologies for the long winded verbiage, but my point being is that the generations behind us ( or maybe just my two sons) simply don't care for tangible history, they're in the here and now and anything that's not 21st century doesn't really exist.
They tolerate and indulge my hobby, but I'll bet you a million pounds, they'd simply throw it all out if it was left to them. Strange how society is devloping, isn't it?
WELL SAID, both SimonC & keramikos. I just hope there'll be somebody(s) left over after I'm gone to also like all this odd crap I enjoy so much myself. It'll no doubt be an "interesting" estate sale...?? <wink><giggle>