Keep at it and you newbies can have finds like mine.:rofl:

[awhitster]

[quote Uncle Willy]I solved the mystery above.

Bill[/quote]I solved it better

From Wikpedia, All about coal

 

[John 'n' W.Va]

hit on my Ace. The by products of coal does, like the slag and coke(NOT THE DRINK). They hit in the dime/ quarter range. I think the ground mineralization is higher with the coal.

 

[Uncle Willy]

I just condensed it to pure simplicity.

Bill

 

[awhitster]

[quote John 'n' W.Va]hit on my Ace. The by products of coal does, like the slag and coke(NOT THE DRINK). They hit in the dime/ quarter range. I think the ground mineralization is higher with the coal.[/quote]When you say slag and coke, were there some kind of ovens for smelting to produce that. If it is just from mining it is plain coal right?

 

[John 'n' W.Va]

It is just plain coal from the mines. In my area it is bituminous coal(soft coal). In Eastern PA. it is anthracite coal(hard coal). The slag from the burned coal is picked up by my MD. It is everywhere and of course around the older homes that used coal for cooking and heating. Coke is to coal like charcoal is to wood. They had stone ovens in the hillsides that made it. It seems to be scattered in a lot of places also. There is a lot of coke along the railroad tracks. Maybe in your area also.

 

[Roper]

n/t

 

[DavHut]

Very cool John. I've always wondered how coal was used by regular folks. The only coal I ever saw was in my Xmas stocking,...

 

[awhitster]

[quote John 'n' W.Va]There is a lot of coke along the railroad tracks. Maybe in your area also.[/quote]The only coke around here is from the Refinery nearby that makes coke from crude oil.

 

[Uncle Willy]

Yeah coke is made from soft coal.

Bill

 

[Uncle Willy]

When I was a kid everybody used coal to heat their homes and to cook with. Many homes had coal furnaces in the basement. Coal delivery was big business back then. Course the big locomotives on the railroads used kazillions of tons of the stuff.

During the Depression we used to go down to the railroad yard and walk the tracks picking up coal that fell off the coal cars. Kept us warm on many a cold day and night.

Bill

 

[awhitster]

[quote Uncle Willy]

During the Depression we used to go down to the railroad yard and walk the tracks picking up coal that fell off the coal cars. Kept us warm on many a cold day and night.

Bill[/quote]My Dad told me once him and my uncles did the same thing during the depression in Ohio. Poor folk do what they have to do to survive.

 

[bloodyknees]

In the 50's a lot of box cars loaded with wheat passed thru our town headed for shipping ports on the gulf. We would walk the tracks looking for small piles of wheat that would leak out while the trains were stopped. After collecting several lbs., we would sell it the the local feed store. Just small change really, but to a 10 year old it was a lot of money. Another time I actually feed out a hog I had for an ag project. Didn't buy any feed until it came time fatten it up on corn before the sale.
It's crazy some the things you remember..........Later...Al

Another thing I just remembered......Us kids learned real quick to get as far away from the track a possible when a passenger train came high-balling down the track. And it wasn't because we were afraid of getting run over. Some of you other old timers know what I'm talking about.

 

[DavHut]

...soda pop bottles, to be precise. Back then they were made of glass, not plastic. We also used to load a truck with scrap metal and sell that.

 

[John 'n' W.Va]

I grew up not having much. We lived outside Detroit in the 60's. I would go around with a wagon and collect pop bottles. I made a killing. Those suburbanites would never take back their returnable bottles. Every other month I would make my rounds. I didn't have to ask my dad for money. My dad use to barrow money from me.

 

[awhitster]

We collected them too. We got 4 cents each. There was only 2 stores in town. The closest to us was Max Market. He would be half drunk and only want to give us 3 cents. We'd tell him Leonard's will give us 4 cents. Well take them there then. Sometimes we didn't want to walk further so we would take the 3 cents. Then we would go behind the store and fish a few out of the chicken wire enclosure he kept them in to make up the difference. We'd go back in and he would yell and accuse us of stealing them out back. We would tell him we didn't. Kids will be kids. Those were fun times. We'd mow lawns and save our pop bottle money for the county fair. Kids don't do that any more. Most are spoiled rotten.