Re: Musk is having a bad week

kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com> writes:

On 10 Aug 2024 01:52:23 -0300, Mike Spencer wrote:
 

I've heard it said that some "forty-niners" in rural New England burned
their houses to retrieve the nails before leaving for California and the
promised gold.

 
Nails back then were not those mass produced things we have nowadays, they
were all hand-wrought by blacksmiths.

Yeah, I knew that; I'm a blacksmith.  :-o

Only with the introduction of wire nails in the 1860s did that
slowly change. Nails used to be an investment into the future.

I'k pretty sure cut nails came first, then wire nails.

My house, believed to be built between 1860 and 1880, has hand-forged
nails, cut nails, cut nails that have been hand-headed, and wire nails
in it. (All turned up when replacing sills, kitchen floor and some
interior.)  I suspect that they started construction at the earlier
date and spent 20 years building it.  And never finished as there was
partly finished interior when we acquired it in the 1970s.

--
Mike Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada