21 Comments
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Ed Treleven's avatar

I’m very late to the party on this one but these glasses brought back a flood of memories of my grandparents who owned a small town Wisconsin plumbing-electrical-appliance business from the 1940s to the 70s. They had a number of measuring glasses in their kitchen cupboard, most notably ones from Speed Queen, a Wisconsin manufacturer whose washers and dryers they sold. I can still picture myself drinking a tall glass of milk during noontime dinner (what nonfarm folk call lunch — dinner was called supper) at their kitchen table. I have one or two of these kinds of glasses in my cupboard now, none unfortunately from my grandparents house. Dunno where those wound up.

Rusty Hudson's avatar

Yes, it is the old Citizens Bank weather ball from Flint! Love seeing a part of home leading the collection. Now do you remember the poem that goes with it?

When the weather ball is red,

higher temperatures ahead

When the weather ball is blue,

lower temperatures are due.

Yellow light in weather ball

means there’ll be no change at all.

When colors blink in agitation,

there’s going to be precipitation.

Still doesn't look right with other letters than CB.

RK's avatar

CB dude - that's the old Citizens Bank Weather Ball from Flint, right?

Bob Andrews's avatar

"Hey Mabel! Black Label!" was Carling Brewing's advertising slogan back in the day. There were plenty of TV commercials built around it with a blonde actress playing 'Maybel'. That has to be what the slogan on the beverage distributor's glass is alluding to.

Jo Zwiep's avatar

Great collection! The Katz logo is very familiar to me, because it's on my favorite Ebbets Field Flannels hat.

https://www.ebbets.com/products/kansas-city-katz-1961-authentic-wool-ballcap

And I see Reddy Kilowatt hiding back there too.

Patrick S.'s avatar

I noticed several of those glasses had oddly specific anniversary dates for their merchants. One had 90 years while others were 22, 31 and 63 years. Now THAT would be a sub-sub-niche of collecting!

Daniel Shank Cruz's avatar

Ooh, those Parker pens are a delight! Especially the Duofolds.

Elizabeth Fox's avatar

Thanks for your interest in my collection! And that Sanitone glass is great, along with the back story.

Nick Kissoff's avatar

I was intrigued by Elizabeth’s choices of filler paper that she used which seemed a bit random. Some plain white, some standard notebook paper (but oriented both vertically or horizontally ) and some brown paper that made it look as if the glass contained a chocolate milk shake.

Elizabeth Fox's avatar

They were taken at different times, and I needed to use the brown paper so the white image of the face would show up.

Susan Hubele's avatar

I once had a phone number in my Berkeley college days: TILT129 🤪

TIm's avatar

No need for a shot glass to measure the booze… brilliant!!!

Benjamin's avatar

Oh man that Katz cup takes me back to when I lived in KC. One of the old Katz stores has been in the news lately in hopes of preservation as well.

Jerry Wolper's avatar

Galli is still distributing beer in Western Pennsylvania.

Mike Engle's avatar

What’s a phone exchange? Like, “call this specific operator to get to us?”

Paul Lukas's avatar

When the first three numbers are spelled out -- HEMLOCK-7-3291.

Our home number when I was growing up was 363-6212. But my parents sometimes said "EM-3-6212." The "EM" was short for "Emerson," which was our town's exchange.

Obviously, this was all before the days of having to include the area code in every call. In those days, area codes were only for long distance.

Mike Engle's avatar

So, HEMLOCK-7-3291 would equal local telephone number 437-3291, did I do that right?

Thanks for the explainer, I’m only 37

Norb's avatar

Our grandmother with the measuring glass also had an old phone book that used the lettered phone exchanges. That's where I learned of their existence. Her number was HEmlock 2-6000, which seems like a number they wouldn't give out to the rank and file these days.

Paul Lukas's avatar

Correct! If you do a google image search on "rotary dial with letters" or "phone exchange with letters," you'll see plenty of visual examples.

Elizabeth Fox's avatar

Wikipedia has a good article on the whole thing, and mentions that in the 50s AT&T created a standard list (included). Ours was CItrus 3-8037 which isn't a standard name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_exchange_names

Jerry Wolper's avatar

The "Stanley" in STanley 7-1566.