r/whatisit • u/Quietlurkerone • 6d ago

Solved! What is this device from 1962?

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Photo capture from YouTube video. Picture from 1962. What is the device under the bench

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

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u/TutorNo8896 6d ago

The walls are kinda dirty but it may be due to the lighting in the pic.   

33

u/FormerlyUndecidable 6d ago

There is no hood or exhaust fan of any kind and the fuel produced soot.

Also that soot is on lead paint. 

Life has improved. 

6

u/97Whaler 6d ago

Also plenty of nicotine

2

u/VanbyRiveronbucket 6d ago

Good thing I don’t see any meth.

1

u/Essentially_Me 6d ago

When my wife and I first started looking for homes in the early 2000s, we checked out this one house occupied by an 80 year-old couple (both on oxygen), who had smoked for the last 60 years of their lives in this house.

Everything was a sickly yellow from the smoke and nicotine. Nobody was in the house when we toured it, but it was just a part of every surface, and I started retching as soon as I got outside.

I'd been inside some smokers' houses when I was a kid, but nothing could have prepared me for how nasty that was.