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Friday, July 9, 2010

Adventures at Packrat Pat's

I have been traveling to the Detroit area a lot for work the last several weeks.  I decided to take a day off from work, and extend my trip and visit my daughter in Indiana.  Uncle Tractor got to visit his daughter, son-in-law, and their precious daughter.  I am very pleased with them.  They love their daughter so much, and she is such a good two year old.  They are truly blessed.  I am very proud of them all.

My daughter has been talking about one antique store that she had to take me to see.  After a morning of antiquing wit everyone, we got some special father-daughter time and went there for a visit.

The store is a place called Packrat Pat's.  It is not for the faint of heart.  It is jam-packed with all sorts of treasures - all at decent prices.  The aisles are narrow, and the shelves are very full, but it is a great treasure hunt.



I came across a unique crock.  It was churn-shaped, but is not butter crock.  It had a fitted lid, handles, and interesting fish designs on it. I sent a photo via my cell phone to the wife.  She too liked it, so we sprung for it (only $60).



While perusing the bins, we came across of bin of porcelain odd-and-ends.  Most of the bins held electrical isolators, but there was a multi-piece assembly that had us stumped.  It had a patent number on it, U.S. Patent Number 2,376,410.  It was marked with a '???' description on the tag.





I like a good challenge.  I had to figure it out.  Though we did not buy it, I had the patent number (not much of a challenge really...).

The item could be disassembled.  Each of the rings could be removed.  Did you figure it out yet?

Okay, here's the spoiler:

It is a coffee filter!  This item was patented in 1945.  It would be placed in a drip coffee machine.  The grounds and water would be above.  This assembly would be placed in a cylindrical slot below the brew.  The water / ground mixture would drip down through the rings, but they would hold the grounds back.  The filtered coffee would then collect in the bottom pitcher.  It was an interesting design (as it would be a reusable filter).  It never caught on.

You never know what you will find - particularly when you go into a good antique shop.

7 comments:

~ Regan said...

I'm so glad you had fun too! I was so happy you were able to take a day off to visit us- cant wait to see both of you for Thanksgiving!

Heidi said...

stopping over from your sweet daughter's blog, I HAD to know what the heck that thing was! Thanks for sharing!

Tracy's Trinkets and Treasures said...

I had to come over from Reagan's blog too and see what it was. She is so lucky to have a great dad to hang out with.

Crafty Sisters said...

Regan is lucky to have a dad like you to shop with! Pretty neat that it turned out to be a coffee filter!

Musings From A French Cottage said...

I too, came over from Regan's. Glad to "meet" you! Sounds like the two of you had a great day.

Wow, a coffee filter - who would have guessed? I was thinking some sort of electrical insulator or something of that nature. Thanks for sharing and have a great week!

Kathleen

christy said...

very cool I have one of these that I bought Pre-internet and never knew what it was. Clean out a drawer today I ran across it and thought I would try and find out what it was.

Uncle Tractor said...

Christy - Welcome to my humble blog. It is kinda cool you have one of these filter gizmos. You never know what you will find at a antique / junk shop.