Aeroplane Ashtrays

Lenore has left a fascinating comment on a previous post where we had an example of an aeroplane ashtray. Do drop over and have a read.

We didn't realise these were particularly a Melbourne thing - we are now so much the wiser. This is the other one that we have in our collection.

Still Working in the School

School Ma'am Sue and Libby from the cataloguing team are justifiably looking happy - they have almost finished the "Nature Study" display case. Only the name tags to go in, and the back to be screwed on (Thanks Rob!).

So we are still working in the school, refreshing displays and fine-tuning what is already there.

The Ducks are looking particularly good

Moving Right Along

This does not mean we have died and gone to Heaven - although from the last post yoou might think so. It means we have moved along after a successful audit of the front of the Funeral Parlour, to the last place catalogued in the 1990s. We are working in the Sunny Creek School, with The Ducks and Lizards.

Once we have finished there, we will have checked all the cataloguing that was done in the 1990s. Which will be a considerable relief. It has only taken about three and a half years to work through it, while working on other areas as well.

Working with things like this, which has just come in.

Looking at it, we think it is a lifter for taking boiled eggs out of boiling water. It has been in the donor's family for so many years, that they do not know what it is. Maybe, if you wanted to keep your eggs warm at the breakfast table, instead of an egg cosy, if there were a lot of people, they were kept in warm water. And this was used to lift out the egg you wanted?

So that is the best we can come up with - any suggestions, anyone?

LATE EDIT: We now believe this may be for lifting preserved eggs, which were sometime kept for months in a liquid, one of the most common being "waterglass" - one of our mothers used a product called "Ovo" in the 1950s to preserve multiple eggs in a galvanised cream can full of liquid, for months. They were not easy to get out of the liquid, and one of these, with hindsight, appears to be perfect for the job. Except those feet might get in the way .....

Returning to the previous post ........

What? You don't know what an egg cosy is? It is like a tea cosy, only smaller. We have one in the collection.

Imagine coming down to breakfast to find the maid had cosily put your egg in this. It even has lovely pink flowers on the other side. No fishing in the water for you, to get your own egg.

We are very, very Excited

We are very, very excited. After waiting about two-and-a-half years (which included a number of attempts), a significant number of the items from our Collection are up on CAN.

To see them, just go to the Search Screen, type in "Gippstown" (but without the "talkies") and you can go through them. Don't forget to click on the link to see more details of an item in which you have an interest.

There have been just a few teething problems, where some of our images do not show up (but we can solve that with time), and some come up a number of times, page after page.

But overall, it is really wonderful.

Many, many thanks to Ingrid Mason from CAN and her anonymous XML wizard.

Part of the problem was that we were unsure how to provide an InMagic input for CAN - now solved and we are hopeful the next batch will be up there much sooner.

Thanks Ingrid!