WWII scrap drive

[ultrarunner]

Paper Drives helped fund Scouting and 4 times a year we collected. Twenty Dollars a ton...

Have not seen a paper drive or collection in decades but few take the paper anymore.

Mom still does... but it keeps getting smaller and smaller.

They must have done a special run after election because her neighborhood was blanketed with every house getting Headline ***** defeated... some are still in the driveways.

 

[MossRoad]

We did paper drives in Boy Scouts in the 70's as well. I remember going to one house and asking if they had any newspapers they'd like to donate.... oh boy. Old woman takes me down in the basement and it was wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling neatly tied bundles of newspaper. Must have been decades worth. Honestly, it was more paper than our newspaper's own archive in volume. I remember my dad going home and making some phone calls, and the scrap vendor brought a truck directly to the woman's house. It took our troop several hours to unload that basement. We were beat. :laughing: Made our troop several hundred bucks. I recall we bought some camping gear with it. :thumbsup:

 

[JethroB]

Rationing continued in England well into the 1950s. It is hard to imagine the destruction and disruption of the economies and life in Europe caused by the war. And remember that England entered the war more than two years before the US and were pretty much alone.

 

[Jstpssng]

And it happened again a few years ago when scrap was over $200 per ton. Greed fueled it this time.

You beat me to it. It made me sick watching some of the things go down the road for scrap. One day I followed a pickup loaded with old horse-drawn implements until he stopped; if they were destined for scrap I was going to make an offer he couldn't refuse. He turned out to be a collector... thankfully, because I don't know what I would have done with a pickup load of old horse drawn implements.

We used to do the paper drives in the '70s also... they shredded the paper, treated it to make it fire resistant and used it for blown in insulation.

 

[Peter 315]

You beat me to it. It made me sick watching some of the things go down the road for scrap. One day I followed a pickup loaded with old horse-drawn implements until he stopped; if they were destined for scrap I was going to make an offer he couldn't refuse. He turned out to be a collector... thankfully, because I don't know what I would have done with a pickup load of old horse drawn implements.

Get some horses .........

 

[ovrszd]

I have a horse drawn sickle mower and a horse drawn 2row Lister displayed in my yard that I bought out of the local scrap yard.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

Another thing I recall was that you best be very, very circumspect if you bought a used car in the early 50's. If it was built pre war, chances are the odometer had been turned back, and it was completely worn out. They drove them until there was no yummy left. They weren't like modern cars, where 100K miles is not unusual. The old Chevys got maybe 30K and then needed rings and a valve job.

 

[ovrszd]

Another thing I recall was that you best be very, very circumspect if you bought a used car in the early 50's. If it was built pre war, chances are the odometer had been turned back, and it was completely worn out. They drove them until there was no yummy left. They weren't like modern cars, where 100K miles is not unusual. The old Chevys got maybe 30K and then needed rings and a valve job.

The first car I licensed was a '63 Ford Galaxy. 49K miles. Bought it off the back row at a dealership for $500 in '68. It was considered worn out. All back roads country miles.

 

[stuckmotor]

Rationing continued in England well into the 1950s. It is hard to imagine the destruction and disruption of the economies and life in Europe caused by the war. And remember that England entered the war more than two years before the US and were pretty much alone.

Someone said West Germany was taken off rationing well before England, because the allies were afraid it would go communist. Humm, England voted in socialism, maybe rationing had something to do with that.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

The first car I licensed was a '63 Ford Galaxy. 49K miles. Bought it off the back row at a dealership for $500 in '68. It was considered worn out. All back roads country miles.

Yeah, country roads, especially the sand hills where I grew up, were hard on cars. The front ends wore out pretty quick, as did brakes, U joints, wheel bearings, etc. Springs and shocks took a beating.