Harding, my grandmother and my mother used burned-out bulbs for darning tools. No fancy-dancy glass eggs for them, no sir. You didn't throw out a burned out bulb in our house or my grandparents' house until Mom or Granny gave the okay since it might be needed in the sewing basket.

Jeff

Jeffrey L. Boyer, RPA
Supervisory Archaeologist/Project Director
Office of Archaeological Studies, Museum of New Mexico

  *   The Center for New Mexico Archaeology
  *   PO Box 2087
  *   Santa Fe, New Mexico 87504
  *   tel: 505.476.4426
  *   e-mail: [log in to unmask]

"Essentially every model is false but some models are useful." -- George E. P. Box, mathematician and statistician


________________________________________
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Harding Polk [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, August 10, 2015 3:24 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Glass egg

Incandescent light bulbs work just as well.


Harding Polk II
[log in to unmask]




-----Original Message-----
From: Dedie Snow <[log in to unmask]>
To: HISTARCH <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sat, Aug 8, 2015 11:33 am
Subject: Re: Glass egg


Right you are Smoke,
My grandmother, various great aunts and cousins all had
darning eggs used to repair holey socks and stockings.  The eggs were not toys
and were not to be played with although I remember sneaking it out of
Grandmother's sewing basket on occasion.  While mostly made of wood, one of the
great aunts had a simply glorious darning egg made of a large pigeon-egg sized
chunk of amethyst that had been shaped and tumbled to satiny finish--I wonder
whatever happened to that?

Dedie Snow

-----Original Message-----
From:
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Smoke
Sent:
Friday, August 07, 2015 1:05 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Glass
egg

I have seen lots of darn eggs but all of them have been wooden.  The come
in shape ranging from egg to ovoid with out the egg shape and may or may not
have handles.  Often the ones with handles were called "mushroom".  The were
common in late 1800s and early 1900s. My grandmother (born in the early 1880s)
knitted a lot and had a lot of trouble with her grandchildren taking her 2
knitting and playing with as toys but she was very patient with us.  I half
remember that she said they were often given to girls as one of the items for
their "Hope Chests", if anyone still remembers the term.  This is the first I
have heard of them be used to induce egg laying in chickens. I am also not
familiar with those made of glass.

On Fri, Aug 7, 2015 at 1:08 PM, Keith Doms
<[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> Hello,
>                 We recently
discovered a blown milk glass egg.   It
> appears to be a dummy egg that was
used it encourage chickens to lay.
> My informants tell me that door knobs
and darning eggs were also used.
> It comes from a midden that dates between
1880 and 1910.  The little
> research I have been able to do has not answered
the following
> questions.  1. When did they start making blown eggs?  2. How
far did
> the practice of artificial eggs to induce laying go back? 3.  Does

> anyone know of an advertisement for these things.
>
> Keith R. Doms
>
Newlin Grist Mill
> Site Manager
> 219 S. Cheyney Rd.
> Glen Mills, PA
19342
> (610) 459-2359
>
[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>



--
Smoke
Pfeiffer
Eschew Obfuscation!