Piece of History

I just had someone give this to me, thinking I could use it with my Stoker, which burns rice. I took it with a "Thank you, thank you, thank you". The cover says it was patented in "June 5th, 1917".
Anyone else still using one of these?

Not every day does one see one of those...er...sifters?

Is that to sift the unburnt coal from the ash?

I suppose it would keep down the dust nicely...
& it looks quite fresh for an Octogenarian.
Pretty-neat!

Bob

thats a neat piece of history there.
i could put that to work for you.
plenty of coal to sift here.
mark

RMA wrote:Is that to sift the unburnt coal from the ash?

You could use it for that but I'd venture to guess it was meant for use with regular coal. Basically a small screening "plant". The breakers use the same thing. The screen you see inside it vibrates inside a large plant, you can actually see the building shake over at Hudson.

If you were able to get your hands on some unsized coal you could run it through that, even if you were cracking it yourself. For example if you went to the breaker and asked they may let you scrape up all the breakage and waste from various places at a considerable discount. Just an easy way to separate all the dirt and dust so nothing left but Pea or larger.

I was told it had been used to sift ashes, to capture or collect unburnt coal. I had guessed it could be used to sift mine-run to get out the fines/dirt.
Its a very simplistic design. Amazing it had a US Patent. For anyone who wants to try and design their own, It could be duplicated very easily.

At first i thought it was a mailbox to shred all the junk mail the USPS delivers.

That screen isn't fine enough to sift the ash from a stoker burning rice. Back in the day hand-fed units burning stove/nut/pea and producing ash were everywhere, that's what that sifter was made for. I suggest you send it along to me, I'll make good use of it! Unless you plan to go with a hand fed real man stove, that is.

Nice ASH Sifter like it was mention above they where ment to sift the coal out of the ash made for the larger coal
like in the hand fed stoves / furnaces the sceen is 1/2 good for pea nut stove & bigger buck. Rice & barley will fall threw the screen .

What is the patent # on the sifter?


Bigbarney

Can't read the number. It was printed on the paper label, and has been rubbed off. Printed in red across the top are the words " .........E MARK REG. U.S. PAT. OFFICE" .
Stamped in the hopper cover below the paper label are the words "U.S. PATENT JUNE 5th 1917".
Amazing condition, nothing but some minor surface rust. Even the screen has no rust.
See attached pics.

mozz wrote:At first i thought it was a mailbox to shred all the junk mail the USPS delivers.

Yes, it really does look like a mailbox welded to the lid of a steel garbage can.

Believe it or not I just saw one of these for sale at an auction at Leesport, PA. I didn't "need" one but I should have stayed around to see what it fetched....maybe next time. I just got a laugh when my dad said something about a mailbox welded to the top of a trash can lid and I just had read this thread!

rocketjeremy wrote:Believe it or not I just saw one of these for sale at an auction at Leesport, PA. I didn't "need" one but I should have stayed around to see what it fetched....

Yeah, that would have been interesting to learn how much it sells for.
But then again, A Piece of History is Priceless

Gives new scope and meaning to the words Hamster Power. Very Cool Contraption.

we have one here.....different brand but looks almost the same