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 Trump 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.

 

[70Beee]

A photo of the WWII scrap metal drive held at the Porter school house during the war years. Several of the students in the picture were cousins of my dad. The school house was sold at auction in the early 60’s when my grandparents bought it and built it into their forever house. It’s been our home for over forty years now but no longer looks like this picture.

 

[ArlyA]

A photo of the WWII scrap metal drive held at the Porter school house during the war years. Several of the students in the picture were cousins of my dad. The school house was sold at auction in the early 60’s when my grandparents bought it and built it into their forever house. It’s been our home for over forty years now but no longer looks like this picture.

I wonder why they took these photos. For the marketing of there scrap drive? Here in the Copper Country, many, many old mine structures came down and cut up for scrap during those years.

 

[Rebeldad1]

When I was a kid in the 1950's and 1960's scrap drives were still a popular way for kids organizations to raise money. I guess you couldn't do that today because kids don't want to work that hard and people would be concerned it was too dangerous.

Back then it was school newspaper drives for us. All the neighbors save up for us. Was quite a sight to see just before they were picked up.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

Notice that old elongated tub? The ones I have seen that survived were made of copper...great recycle material. It's rare to find one even in an antique store any more.

 

[MossRoad]

Notice that old elongated tub? The ones I have seen that survived were made of copper...great recycle material. It's rare to find one even in an antique store any more.

We have a copper boiler on our porch. Wife and I frequent antique stores on a regular basis. There's usually several in every store we go to. Maybe they bought them all out up by you and sell them around here.

 

[MossRoad]

I wonder why they took these photos. For the marketing of there scrap drive? Here in the Copper Country, many, many old mine structures came down and cut up for scrap during those years.

They took the pictures because they were proud of the kids' efforts.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

We have a copper boiler on our porch. Wife and I frequent antique stores on a regular basis. There's usually several in every store we go to. Maybe they bought them all out up by you and sell them around here.

Well, I'm relying on my empty nest days, about 20 years ago, when antiquing was our avocation. Could have had a lot of estate sales since then!

 

[Wyobuckaroo]

My dad said in the fall of 1941 he bought a very nice 1938 Chevy.. This giving him good transportation through the war years..

Both my dad and moms families sold all there livestock late summer, fall of 1941.. Almost 2 train loads to the Chicago stock yards.. My grandparents leasing pasture, hay land, small grain crop land until after the war when my dad and uncles came back to the home places...

Dad saying grandpa telling about authorities coming out and taking scrap machinery and such, but paying going scrap prices at the time.. They never knew what all was hidden back in the shelter belts and gullies..

Then of course my uncles bought new tractors and equipment with there veteran preffernce.. And they bought tractors from all there buddies that qualified for equipment..

When I was a little kid, my dad sold the Chevy and got a 1946 Dodge...

 

[ultrarunner]

Yep Victory Gardens, Eastern Star making bandages, scrap drives, gas rationing and worse tires simply not available to purchase...

Price Controls and about the only way you could rent a apartment in war production region was furnished which cost more...

I still have an original Gas Ration Book and the window sticker on the windshield of my Model A pickup.

On the back of the sticker it read is this trip necessary and drive 35 mph to save tires...

The little American Bantam 60 survived in high numbers because they advertised 60 mph and 60 mpg... not many economy cars at that time...

I think a lot of Model T survived because 15 million made and a lot of body construction is wood...

 

[Jstpssng]

My mother still has some old WWII ration coupons in her display case. Of course they grew a lot of their food back then. Back in the Depression my grandfather would take the wagon to a resort hotel about 15 miles away and fill it with garbage for the pigs. I grew up using a silver ladle with "Poland Spring House" on the handle.

When scrap was high my father had somebody come in and clean up some of the scrap metal which had accumulated over the last century. It was when Alzheimer's was starting to take over and he let things go that he shouldn't have including bulldozer parts and one of the bottoms for the old Oliver horse drawn plow.
For years there was an old Model A frame down back, along with several body pieces scattered around. As I recall it was in pretty good shape.
After comments made in the "Model A" thread which ran a while back I went down looking for it but it's gone, along with the better body panels. I hope that he didn't let that go for scrap, but have no way of knowing now.