The morning call., 1890-04-07
OLD COAL-OIL TINS.
Som e of the Uses for the APP
parently Useless Articles.
How They Are Gathered and Graded by
Dealers = Honey, Fruit Juices, Oils,
Matches, Etc, Are Packed in Them.

Or hasn't it any? Except as handy ap-
pendage to our neighbours dogs tail, is
there any use for it, anyway? We know
its use in the past 1t has supplied the
wherewthal to kill off the ants around the
family sugar-barrel. As a fire-kindler, its
contents have played an interesting part in
furnishing experimental explosions in the
kitchen stove. 1t has been valuable, too,
al intervals as a corrective to playful
meters, containing as it did a liquid spe-
cially Objectionable to gas companies, known
professionally as kerosene. That has been
its history when full But how about it
when empty?
60 If there is not much poetry about a
greasy, battered old coal-oil tin, there Is
very considerable use. Somehow these old
tins are gen orally associated with dust-eins
and garbage heaps, those backyard recep-
tao les of family odds and ends, which it
doesn't pay to pry into with too inquisitiye
an eye, and around which a too sensitive
nose is decidedly al a discount. Thence
they are popularity supposed TO ind their
way to the nearest junk-Store, to be resur-
rected into goodness only knows whatl In
reality the junkmeu cut very small figure
in this business.
a MoNoPoLIsT OF THE TRADE.
The trade in old coal oil tins is a specially
and a big one too. There is one wholesale
dea lei who is admitted as doing two-thirds
Of the whole of this business done on the
Pacific Coast. Last year he handled fully
half million Of them. In weight, allow
ing about 500 cans to the ton, this would
represent 600 tons of old cans. He has
agents and teams all over the city and
throughout the Coast, through Nevada and
Washington, buying up and carting the
stray TINS that small peddlers pick up going
from house to house.
Let US see what becomes of these 100000
tins then. First and foremost they are
steamed and washed clean with harmless
We getable chemicals strong enough, how
ever, TO kill all traces of alkali or any other
poisonous matter. Those that are stamped
with various brands are picked out and
CLASSIFIED. Next comes the process OF grad
ing, Tor the old coal-On tin trade recognizes
four distinct grades, No. l, No. ?, No. 5 and
No. I.
One of the uses to which No. is Pot is as
a can for honey and fruit juice, the cleans
ing process having rendered them sweet
enough for the most sensitive kind of eaIa-
bles. Indeed, buyers prefer them to new
TINS as being, Tor choice, really ahead OF
them in regard TO cleanliness and strength.
Tie question Of leakage, too. is reduced to
a minimum, the fact that the second
hand tins have 10 be so closely examined
and-~tpSted-eVery seam being oYerhauled,
I'D where necessary Notwithstanding
this great desIderatum.
CANS FOR HONEY.
For the honey trade only the very best
are selected ana specially cleansed from all
talnts and the bad effects OF acids, solder,
etc. The tins for the fruit-juice trade go
through the same process, and are also pre-
ferred by the trade, on that account, to new
ones.
1t may be as well to explain in this con-
nection that fruit juices are those which
remain over in large fruit canneries,
extracted from the fruits canned and which
are held over until the rush of the fruit
season Is over. when they are manufactured
into jellieS.
Then again, old tins of No. grade are in
steady demand to put mixed paints in,
heavy oils, such as lubrlcating oils, Tor eX-
ample, and for linseed oil, their freedom
from leakage being again great argument
in their favor. There is a somewhat erro-
neOus impression abroad among sns piciOuS
consumers OF coal-oil that these old tins
are remarkably useful, especially il they
are stamped with popular brand and said
brand has not been obllterated, for re1illing
purposes, the quality of the kerosene with
which they are refiiled not being within a
mile of the standard which the brand
suggests. Indeed, their use is often sup
posed to be mainly for these brand pirates.
LITTLE OR NO REFILLING.
As matter Of truth, there is practically
little or no Teflling TO speak of in this
1t perhaps an occasional sly act OF piracy,
but to no alarming extent. So very little
bulk oil comes here thatit doesn't amount
10 much. Perhaps this statement may take
quite load OFF the conscience of the con-
SclenuOuS housewife, who, as she pockets
the few cents that the peddlar deigns to
give her for her old cans. has some grave
nisgiYlngs as to whether or not she Is not
a subscribing party to a fraud; possibly
even compromising felony.
no ID tfnc find 1tafr oh aFr
in being converted into receptacles for
e putty, and dry material generally, such as
chloride Of lime, soda, ash and talloW. AS
packages too for caustic soda, SO Infinitely
= preferable for handling to the old-style
barrels, they get sent on all sorts of distant
pilgrimages-In fact, wherever the caustic
soda trade calls them. Australia, Mexico,
the South Sea Islands, Central and South
America and the Sa ndHch Islands all
absorb large quantities of our eastaways.
The third grade has much more re-
strlcted sphere of usefulness. They are
reserved almost exclusively for the match
factories, for packing matches in. For the
fourth or lowest grade - the Yeritable
'cnlls"--5 reserved the cruel fate of the
meltlng-pot. Their destiny is the smelters.
These battered end broken remains. after
having had the tin melted off (for let the
uninit.ated learn that tin is one of the
smallest component parts of what we know
as tln-plates, tie sheets out of which all
Hux IN Tie reduction of lead ores.
ToY-MAKERs' MATERIAL.
In the Old World, especially in Germany
and France and Switzerland, the home of
the toy-makers, old scraps of tin are largely
picked up for working up in connection
with some OF those maryels of mysterious
mechanism that SO perpleX and amuse the
mind of every tey-loving youngster. Very
soon, no doubt, all these odds and ends will
be turned to account here for the same puT-
pose. Indeed, ii has been already contem-
plated to utilize them by opening up
market with trunk-makers, as it is thought
that when made attractive by ''crystalIiz-
Ing" or that glazing in sort of rainbow
tints that one sees in the cheaper trunks,
they can be extensively used in this
connection as well as for trimmings, where
only small pieces are required.
The bIng-tins, too, in use by the hundreds
OF thousands in the wineries and distilleries
throughout the State, could be as easily
made out Of these despised remnants as by
cutting them, as at present, out Of whole
cloth; that is to say, whole sheets Of tin,
thereby e1fecting saving III waste of new
as well as providing use for old material.
Prices OF old coal-Oll tins, OF course like
everything else, are governed by the law of
supply aud demand; up one day and down
-the next Just now they are down. Ia the
Fprlneipal factory, where the business of
TefXing is reduced to science, the quiet
ness OF trade is proved by the employ
ployment Of only twenty-five, where usually
twenty-eight to thirty hands find constant
employment. Then again it is, so to speak,
an OFF season. For, be it known, the trade
Is dlgnlhed enough to have seasons all its
own.
TIE OIL SEASON.
There is the oil season, when oil-deal-
ers pack for the trade, who in turn have
their season as well. Then there is the
1rult-Juice season also. Another reason
just now for the duller trade is to be found
IN the inevitable bad weather." which
has so interlered this winter with all trade
the heavy roads all over the country pre-,
venting in this instance the usual consign-
ments.
As illustrating the size of The business
and its extended ramifcations It's with sur
prise that the public Will learn of whole car
loads of empties"-a carload implying a
matter of 1000 tins-being frequently con-
signed from the southern part OF the State