[SEL] Ebay sale items - interesting

[Jim Hardman]

The Sootless plug (auction 400012814487) is a home made affair;  Oaks & Dow 
never offered priming plugs or caged plugs with separate primers.  These 
brass and mica plugs were patented in 1905 and had a porcelain insulator 
from the flange down to the points... a functional design.  Priming plugs 
were popular in 1905-1915, but this is spurious, a recent assembly for the 
eBay audience.

The Champion Primer (auction 220319864116) is relatively common, but surely 
not common in the box.  This appears to be a used plug, note the change in 
thread appearance and the nicked-up shell (body).  The box is probably as 
valuable as the plug.  I guess it was common practice to put the used plug 
back into the box when installing a new plug.

Gasoline was generally used for priming, but it was not a cure-all.  Early 
gas stocks perhaps lacked adequate volatile upper end fractions;  it was 
accepted that in really cold weather, priming might not help.  Friends in 
Wooster, Ohio report that natural gas well pumpers would often build a fire 
under the cylinder overhang to warm things up on a cold morning.

Peace from chilly Vermont...  Jim

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Lowe" <plowe at exemail.com.au>
To: "ATIS" <sel at lists.stationary-engine.com>; "Oldengine.org" 
<stationary-engine at oldengine.org>
Sent: Friday, November 28, 2008 8:30 AM
Subject: [SEL] Ebay sale items - interesting


> Couple of interesting items on Ebay, I have never seen these before but 
> you guys in the US might think they are common.
>
> Ebay item numbers  400012814487   &  220319864116
>
> Peter, Oz
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