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A Pandora’s box that contained toxic tobacco. This Gem is a miller’s snuff-box, inlaid with a beautiful and intricate windmill design, as well as some mother of pearl. Snuff boxes such as this could be highly detailed and would require the skilled work of silversmiths, jewellers and enamelers. According to the engraving, this one comes…
This flour was Hitler’s secret weapon. This Gem is a photograph of two flour bags, which were produced under Government regulations during the Second World War. At the start of the war Britain was importing around 70% of its grain, but with the demands of war and the risk posed by U-Boats to imported supplies,…
Purity, Quality and Merit. This Gem is a Certificate of Excellence, issued by the Royal Instituation of Public Health and Hygiene to certify that the Homeland Flour produced by Witherington and Over fulfilled their required quality standards. Witherington & Over was a milling company in Reading, not far from where the Archive is now at…
Mill don’t just grind flour. This is a donkey-powered rice mill in China. It makes use of an Edge Runner Stone rather than using a pair of flat millstones. To work it, the rice would be placed on the stationary lower stone. The donkey then drags the top vertical stone around the edge of this lower stone,…
You never know what may lie inside an advertisement. This Gem is a trade card for Washburn Crosby Company Flour Mills, produced in around 1890 to advertise their Gold Standard Flour. What makes this trade card a Gem is the fascinating folding design: the picture of a traditional windmill on the front of the card…
