I saw this once in an old hotel building. I think it must have been in New York. The receptacle, of course, was closed. It had such an enchanting old-time feel. I’ve never forgotten it. I’m not a big fan of New York, but they have these buildings from the early 20th century that hold all of the shadows of the past. It’s an incredible experience to be there.
Although this particular hotel also might have been in Chicago. I can’t remember right now, unfortunately.
The house I grew up in had one, but it wasn’t labeled it was just a slit in the medicine cabinet.
Probably one reason they no longer make them was declining use of double-edged razors in favor of disposable cartidges, which started in the 1970s IINM.
My family’s first home, built in the 1950s in Miami, had exactly that sort of slot in the back of the medicine cabinet. The house was built as what they called CBS Construction, meaning concrete blocks and stucco. The stacked concrete blocks had hollow insides, and that was what provided a disposal shaft for the razor blades.
Eventually we discovered a small metal door at the base of an outside wall, which when pryed open past the rust and dirt, turned out to open into the small space at the bottom of that shaft. We children were then doubly forbidden from playing around down there, as it was already suspected of harboring scorpions!
My grandmother worked in an insane asylum as an X-Ray tech, and when my grandfather visited he noticed they had a policy of policing the pocket knives of those who were committed. The asylum director’s office had a slot in (I can’t remember if it was in the wall or not) where these pocket knives were dropped once the patients were committed to the asylum.
GP told me that neither the patients nor the asylum had any way to get them back and he had been told there were hundreds to thousands of pocket knives dropping into it. Lord only knows how many were lost before the building was eventually shut down.
Still that is not the first nor the oddest thing humans have hidden or bury simply to get rid of whatever item in question.
In Germany there was an air-force base who’s name eludes me at the moment. A family member served there in the late 40s as a fighter mechanic.
I was told that just before a major inspection the airbase would hire an excavator from a nearby logistics unit, have a trench dug, and then bury any items that were not on the list of supplies they were supposed to have.
In addition to the usual stuff, there is an entire crate of fully preserved, coated in some form of hard to remove grease, mustang machine guns, minus one which was taken out and tested. The mechanics didn’t want to spend the hours clearing the gunk off, so they just buried the entire crate in one of those excavated trenches.
I was also informed that one time they were having a trench dug, they found a fully intact German fighter that had been buried under ground. Not shot down, but buried fully intact. The airbase had been a German one before so it was probably from there. The thing was, no one ever figured out why it had been buried in the first place.
Last one. So my Grandfather told me a story a few years before he passed about this crazy guy who owned a junkyard in Florida. Dodge just before they had released their 1969 Dodge Charger had sent two into the area to be tested. They didn’t want them back and had put them up for auction. The junkyard man picked them up with less than 200 miles on each. Apparently only the junkyard man and one other bid on them so he got them dirt cheap.
He sealed them up in a time capsule. He welded shut two large tanks that had been salvaged from a gas station. He cut off one end of each, and backed the cars in and onto prepared platforms for them that were raised enough to keep the tires off the ground so there was no pressure on them. Then welded the tank ends back into place. The idea was to wait and sell them later on.
GP was in Florida due to his job and they were drinking buddies which is how he found out about this. When GP left, he would occasionally check in with them as people used to do. The junkyard man eventually passed, and his wife didn’t want to run it, and later passed on herself. Their son inherited it, and also didn’t want to run it. Plus he had moved elsewhere in Florida. (It was practically abandoned by this time.)
GP forgot about it till a bit before he headed to Heaven, but I checked after he told me about it. Apparently someone else had taken over the site and I saw no sign of the tanks, so its possible someone either found the treasure or ended up destroying the vehicles without knowing they were there in the first place. These were practically pristine a quick google search states they would each be 150K-425K depending on the shape they were in and they were in pristine shape before being sealed away. So call it $200K plus each.
The point is, a lot of humans are very much like squirrels in a way. We love to bury and hide things, then forget they were ever there.
Being oatmeal savages, I remember the old men fine stropped/honed their razor blades on the inside of jam jars or their straight razors on flat mirrors ;-D
Clarissa's Blog 
I never heard of this. Where would they go?
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Into the wall.
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“Where would they go?”
They’re magically transported to the playgrounds of orphanages….
Where do you think they go? There’s a picture in the post… they just pile up inside the wall.
“I never heard of this”
Damn environmental killjoys….
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I saw this once in an old hotel building. I think it must have been in New York. The receptacle, of course, was closed. It had such an enchanting old-time feel. I’ve never forgotten it. I’m not a big fan of New York, but they have these buildings from the early 20th century that hold all of the shadows of the past. It’s an incredible experience to be there.
Although this particular hotel also might have been in Chicago. I can’t remember right now, unfortunately.
LikeLike
“I saw this once in an old hotel building”
The house I grew up in had one, but it wasn’t labeled it was just a slit in the medicine cabinet.
Probably one reason they no longer make them was declining use of double-edged razors in favor of disposable cartidges, which started in the 1970s IINM.
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My family’s first home, built in the 1950s in Miami, had exactly that sort of slot in the back of the medicine cabinet. The house was built as what they called CBS Construction, meaning concrete blocks and stucco. The stacked concrete blocks had hollow insides, and that was what provided a disposal shaft for the razor blades.
Eventually we discovered a small metal door at the base of an outside wall, which when pryed open past the rust and dirt, turned out to open into the small space at the bottom of that shaft. We children were then doubly forbidden from playing around down there, as it was already suspected of harboring scorpions!
LikeLike
“Where do you think they go? There’s a picture in the post… they just pile up inside the wall.”
The pic was unclear to me. I was wondering if they were dumped in the street? But I read up on it and understand the mechanism now.
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My grandmother worked in an insane asylum as an X-Ray tech, and when my grandfather visited he noticed they had a policy of policing the pocket knives of those who were committed. The asylum director’s office had a slot in (I can’t remember if it was in the wall or not) where these pocket knives were dropped once the patients were committed to the asylum.
GP told me that neither the patients nor the asylum had any way to get them back and he had been told there were hundreds to thousands of pocket knives dropping into it. Lord only knows how many were lost before the building was eventually shut down.
Still that is not the first nor the oddest thing humans have hidden or bury simply to get rid of whatever item in question.
In Germany there was an air-force base who’s name eludes me at the moment. A family member served there in the late 40s as a fighter mechanic.
I was told that just before a major inspection the airbase would hire an excavator from a nearby logistics unit, have a trench dug, and then bury any items that were not on the list of supplies they were supposed to have.
In addition to the usual stuff, there is an entire crate of fully preserved, coated in some form of hard to remove grease, mustang machine guns, minus one which was taken out and tested. The mechanics didn’t want to spend the hours clearing the gunk off, so they just buried the entire crate in one of those excavated trenches.
I was also informed that one time they were having a trench dug, they found a fully intact German fighter that had been buried under ground. Not shot down, but buried fully intact. The airbase had been a German one before so it was probably from there. The thing was, no one ever figured out why it had been buried in the first place.
Last one. So my Grandfather told me a story a few years before he passed about this crazy guy who owned a junkyard in Florida. Dodge just before they had released their 1969 Dodge Charger had sent two into the area to be tested. They didn’t want them back and had put them up for auction. The junkyard man picked them up with less than 200 miles on each. Apparently only the junkyard man and one other bid on them so he got them dirt cheap.
He sealed them up in a time capsule. He welded shut two large tanks that had been salvaged from a gas station. He cut off one end of each, and backed the cars in and onto prepared platforms for them that were raised enough to keep the tires off the ground so there was no pressure on them. Then welded the tank ends back into place. The idea was to wait and sell them later on.
GP was in Florida due to his job and they were drinking buddies which is how he found out about this. When GP left, he would occasionally check in with them as people used to do. The junkyard man eventually passed, and his wife didn’t want to run it, and later passed on herself. Their son inherited it, and also didn’t want to run it. Plus he had moved elsewhere in Florida. (It was practically abandoned by this time.)
GP forgot about it till a bit before he headed to Heaven, but I checked after he told me about it. Apparently someone else had taken over the site and I saw no sign of the tanks, so its possible someone either found the treasure or ended up destroying the vehicles without knowing they were there in the first place. These were practically pristine a quick google search states they would each be 150K-425K depending on the shape they were in and they were in pristine shape before being sealed away. So call it $200K plus each.
The point is, a lot of humans are very much like squirrels in a way. We love to bury and hide things, then forget they were ever there.
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“we love to bury and hide things, then forget”
Hey… no need to come at me like that!
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All my aunties just had a Tide detergent jug for their needles. Not nearly as cool.
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Being oatmeal savages, I remember the old men fine stropped/honed their razor blades on the inside of jam jars or their straight razors on flat mirrors ;-D
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