Form and Function? Yes, Please.
One of the things I love most about vintage objects is that they often blur the line between usefulness and beauty.
Today, we’re accustomed to the idea that practical objects should be as efficient, inexpensive, and unobtrusive as possible.
That’s understandable.
A modern smoke detector doesn’t need to look like a piece of sculpture. A fire extinguisher doesn’t need to coordinate with the wallpaper. A microwave doesn’t need brass accents.
But there was a time when manufacturers put considerably more effort into making everyday objects attractive.
Vintage glass fire extinguishers are a perfect example.
They weren’t created solely to sit on a collector’s shelf. They were functional safety devices. Some contained chemical solutions intended to suppress fires, and others used compounds that were considered effective at the time.
Unfortunately, our understanding of those chemicals has changed.
Some older extinguishers contained carbon tetrachloride, a chemical that was once widely used in fire-extinguishing equipment because of its effectiveness. We now know carbon tetrachloride is hazardous and toxic, which is one very good reason not to treat an antique extinguisher as an emergency device.
In other words, admire the bottle.
