Cool find!

We've started a remodeling project at the newspaper office. I was taking photos of the beginning of the project today, and I went down into the basement for the first time.

Inside, I found this antique glass fire extinguisher. I like finding old, forgotten things and I like firefighting-related items. So I'm pretty excited about this. We plan on saving it.

I've just done a little Googling, where I see that such fire extinguishers were around from the 1860s to 1950s. Many of them contained carbon tetrachloride, which is a dangerous chemical. It created the deadly gas, phosgene when heated. That gas would smother a fire (and a person).

I don't know if this one contains carbon tetrachloride or not. The Red Comet brand was around from the 1930s to 1950s, supposedly. I think the label looks a little older myself.

Anyone know anything about glass fire extinguishers? I'm gonna do some more research.

Posted by JRC at June 25, 2004 02:08 PM | TrackBack