A simple machine is a mechanical device that changes the direction or magnitude of a force. In general, they are the simplest mechanisms that use mechanical advantage (also called leverage) to multiply force. The six classical simple machines which were defined by Renaissance scientists are:
Lever
Wheel and axle
Pulley
Inclined plane
Wedge
Screw
The simple machine was the beginning. We could take a simple machine and multiply our efforts. Then …
Substitution as makeshift is when human ingenuity comes into play and a tool is used for its unintended purpose such as a mechanic using a long screw driver to separate a cars control arm from a ball joint instead of using a tuning fork. In many cases, the designed secondary functions of tools are not widely known. As an example of the former, many wood-cutting hand saws integrate a carpenter’s square by incorporating a specially shaped handle that allows 90° and 45° angles to be marked by aligning the appropriate part of the handle with an edge and scribing along the back edge of the saw. The latter is illustrated by the saying “All tools can be used as hammers.” Nearly all tools can be used to function as a hammer, even though very few tools are intentionally designed for it and even fewer work as well as the original.
Here, at Bahoukas Antique Mall, we have a variety of tools for nearly every need. We have a wonderful assortment of vintage tools used for woodworking. But check these out for a different peek at what you might find on a shelf :
On the left is a beautiful microscope that just might delight a young person learning a bit of science! In the center, well, this is quite the calculator. What we can do on our smartphones is so much more than the efforts made with the Comptometer! Here’s a great video explain the mechanics behind the Comptometer. You can see how the ‘simple machines’ noted above make up the way these machines worked.
Do you wonder how you use them? Here’s another video. You can advance to around 3 minutes to see how to use it.
And finally, we have an old version of a tool/instrument to read your blood pressure. It’s intriguing to see wrist cuffs now that do the same.
Keep in mind, that tools started with the simplest machines noted above. Later, when you added steam, electricity, transistors, all leading to the computer age and the use of chips. Tools and instruments are fascinating. If you’re an older person, you’ll remember many of these transitions. If you’re a younger person, it might be fun to understand the development required to have the amazing tools you use today!
Hey, stop in and visit us at Bahoukas Antique Mall and Beer MuZeum. We love chatting. And yes, we’ll be watchin’ for ya!
… play with a bow, some with picks, many with plucking and strumming
Above we have a beautiful violin (autographed, but we don’t recognize the names – maybe you will), a dulcimer, a Bauer Bowl Mandolin, a Russian balalaika, and the frame of a banjo. Oh yes, and a tambourine! (Come on… let that 60’s child out and enjoy a bit of rhythm!)
The balalaika (Russian: балала́йка, pronounced [bəɫɐˈɫajkə]) is a Russian stringed musical instrument with a characteristic triangular wooden, hollow body and three strings. Two strings are usually tuned to the same note and the third string is a perfect fourth higher. The higher-pitched balalaikas are used to play melodies and chords. The instrument generally has a short sustain, necessitating rapid strumming or plucking when it is used to play melodies. Balalaikas are often used for Russian folk music and dancing. from wikipedia.org
Listen to an explanation and hear the beauty of this instrument in this video:
If you go to another blog post on our site, CLICK HERE, you can also enjoy the beautiful sound of the dulcimer and the mandolin.
Music seems to be as old as the human race. It has comforted us, given us joy, led us to war, and created amazing celebrations.
“While language splits the world into detailed, distinct pieces, music unifies the world into a whole,” Perlovsky writes. “Our psyche requires both.”
Now enjoy an electric chord organ, trumpet and trombone!
Are you ready to start your own band? We can help with that! In researching this Roxy Organ, it appears to be from the 1960s. It’s electric and is a table top model. It may have had legs for it at one time. It still plays and is quite an interesting piece! Stop in and let us hear you play!
Below you can see the organ with the cover closed. Handsome piece of furniture.
Below is a Besson trombone with case and a Holton (Leblanc) trumpet. Did we say we could help you start your own band. We most certainly can. These instruments all work and are waiting for someone who is ready to appreciate them to come in and adopt them.
We’re always telling you what great and unusual finds you might discover when browsing at Bahoukas Antique Mall and Beer MuZeum. These are just a few items that you might not think of looking for here. Stop by today. Let us know what you’ve been searching for because we just might surprise you with what we have! We’ll be watching for you!
On this drizzly day, we thought it might be fun to share a very small taste of the amazing record album collections George has acquired. Some of these albums have NEVER been opened and hundreds of others are in ‘like new’ condition.
LOVE JUDY GARLAND?
Some of us remember her in “The Wizard of Oz.” But this singer/actress graced our screens and sang to our hearts for decades. These albums are ‘like new’ and amazing!
Do You Remember the MOOG?
The Moog synthesizer (/ˈmoʊɡ/MOHG) is a modular synthesizer invented by the American engineer Robert Moog in 1964. Moog’s company, R. A. Moog Co. (later known as Moog Music), produced numerous models from 1965 to 1981, and again from 2014. It was the first commercial synthesizer and established the analog synthesizer concept.
The Moog synthesizer was brought to the mainstream by Switched-On Bach (1968), a bestselling album of Bach compositions arranged for Moog synthesizer by Wendy Carlos. Mort Garson used the Moog to soundtrack the televised Apollo 11 moonwalk, associating synthesizers with space in the popular imagination. In the late 1960s, it was adopted by rock and pop acts including the Doors, the Grateful Dead, the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. At its height of popularity, it was a staple of 1970s progressive rock, used by acts including Yes, Tangerine Dream and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. With its ability to imitate instruments such as strings and horns, it threatened the jobs of session musicians and was banned from use in commercial work for a period. In 1970, Moog Music released a portable, self-contained model, the Minimoog.
This is merely a sampling of the unique quality and variety of record albums we’ve added to our collections. Do stop in to Bahoukas Antique Mall and Beer Muzeum and Havre de Grace History MuZeum. We truly do have something for everyone! And you know – we’re here – and we’re watchin’ for ya!
Bahoukas received a beautiful collection of calipers and micrometers recently to add to some we already had. It’s a wonderful collection.
Don’t know what they are?
Calipers
Calipers were used as early as the 6th century BC by the Greeks and Romans, according to Wikipedia.
Calipers (photo courtesy of Pixabay)
A caliper (British spelling also calliper, or in plurale tantum sense a pair of calipers) is a device used to measure the dimensions of an object.
Many types of calipers permit reading out a measurement on a ruled scale, a dial, or a digital display. Some calipers can be as simple as a compass with inward or outward-facing points, but no scale. The tips of the caliper are adjusted to fit across the points to be measured and the dimension read by measuring between the tips with another measuring tool, such as a ruler.
It is used in many fields such as mechanical engineer-ing, metalworking, forestry, woodworking, science and medicine.
The first ever micrometric screw was invented by William Gascoigne in the 17th century, as an enhancement of the vernier; it was used in a telescope to measure angular distances between stars and the relative sizes of celestial objects.
A micrometer, sometimes known as a micrometer screw gauge, is a device incorporating a calibrated screw widely used for accurate measurement of components in mechanical engineering and machining as well as most mechanical trades, along with other metrological instruments such as dial, vernier, and digital calipers. Micrometers are usually, but not always, in the form of calipers (opposing ends joined by a frame). The spindle is a very accurately machined screw and the object to be measured is placed between the spindle and the anvil. The spindle is moved by turning the ratchet knob or thimble until the object to be measured is lightly touched by both the spindle and the anvil.
Micrometers are also used in telescopes or microscopes to measure the apparent diameter of celestial bodies or microscopic objects. The micrometer used with a telescope was invented about 1638 by William Gascoigne, an English astronomer.
Here’s a detailed video with information for both inside and outside calipers and micrometers. Most likely, more than you ever wanted to know unless you’re a user of these great instruments. But a perfect primer for appreciating these amazing instruments.
Now that you know all you ever wanted to know about calipers and micrometers, stop in and visit to view our collection. Rain or shine, yep, we’re watchin’ for ya!
Without a cute, little bunny tucked into the Easter Basket or among your Spring Decorations, it just doesn’t feel like Easter – or Spring! Take a peek at some of the cuties we have.
Bahoukas has a wonderful collection of Easter Bunny figures in several sizes – and even a cookie jar!
It’s hard not to love – and smile – at these cute little, music-loving, bunnies at Bahoukas.
Seriously, have you seen anything so cute? Can’t you almost hear them singing along with their instruments? So many wonderful choices of little bunnies to add to a special Easter Basket or in your Spring Decor!
These very collectible bunnies – plus flower pot and large egg – are perfect for your Easter Holiday.
Very collectible Eggs to fill with a gift for Easter or to add to your Spring Decor
Several decorated Eggs as well as a variety of Plastic ones.
Stop in soon and pick out your favorites to tuck into someone’s Easter Basket or add to your Spring Decor. We’ve shared baskets, PEZ ideas, and now Easter Bunnies. Stay tuned for our next collectible perfect for the season. In the meantime, we’ll be watchin’ for ya!
During the 1970s phone subscribers were permitted to own decorative housings for their phones for the first time. Teleconcepts was one of the pioneers that provided innovative decorative phones.
This unique and quite charming clamshell phone is the “Shellamar” by Teleconcepts. It has a retractable fabric cord and YES, it absolutely works. I believe the color would be ‘caramel.’
Did you know deregulation brought us these phone designs?
The Deregulated Phone The 1977 breakup of AT&T revolutionized telephone design, which had been, as Michael Sorkin noted, “sheltered from the vagaries of taste and the manipulations of the marketplace.” The phone was no longer a standardized, leased portal into AT&T’s network; it became an object unto itself, with results that verged on a kind of giddy kitsch, as if people were overcompensating for the long gray-flannel winter. “Today Alexander Graham Bell’s invention comes in a menagerie of forms,” the New York Times wrote in 1986, “that include Coca-Cola bottles, toucans, peekaboo Lucite globes and, in the case of the desk-top Versailles phone, with a reproduction Renoir discreetly planted in the number card.”
Cabbage Patch phone, Turkey phone, Airplane phone The Farmer’s Novelty Phones/gifarmer.com; Shoe phone dldt via ebay. from SLATE.com
What fun it is to consider the changing look and feel of telephones and the continuing changes from big, boxy, cell phones to our modern-day ‘smart’ phone where the telephone function is a small part of the instrument!
In 1973, the company came up with a prototype of the world’s first portable cellular telephone, using the DynaTAC (Dynamic Adaptive Total Area Coverage) system. In the year 1983, the world’s first commercial hand-held cellular phone, the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X phone, got FCC’s approval.
Weighing in at 28-ounce (794-gram), it went on sale the following year. The device used to take 10 hours to fully charge, and offered around 30 minutes of talk-time. Capable of saving last 30 dialed numbers, it carried a price tag of $3,995.
The phone had long appeared in advertisements in the hands of executives as they sat in their cocoons of power, surveying their empire below, but a new kind of power was typified in the 1987 film Wall Street, in which Michael Douglas’ Gordon Gekko clutches a Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. “Oh, jeez, I wish you could see this,” he tells Bud Fox, as he walks a Hamptons beach, “the lights coming up over the water.” It’s like an advertisement for dominion over place: You can’t be here, but I can, and I’m going to use this wonderful instrument to remind you of that fact. A descendent of Motorola’s walkie-talkie work for the military (and looking like it), the DynaTAC, designed by Rudy Krolopp, came on the market in 1984, at just below $4,000 and 28 ounces.
The LUCITE CLAMSHELL PHONE is a beautiful collectible from 50 years ago that reminds many of us just how quickly things have changed. We look forward to showing you this great piece and any collection ‘of our many collections’ that you might want to peruse. Yes… we are watchin’ for ya!
This beautiful guitar with case is ready for someone to love it enough to create beautiful music together.
Ready to begin? Or maybe add a new guitar to your collection?
Yesterday we sold a wonderful drum to an excited young man. In June, Jack Broadbent surprised us with a visit while here for the Jazz Festival sponsored by our HdG Opera House and Arts Collective.
Preview Concert at Bahoukas by Jack Broadbent Jazz and Blues Fest Awsome accompanied by Al Peteraf , He was playing the Dulcimer that was hanging on the wall
We have a few instruments in our store that might be worth taking a look at. But we thought it might be fun to mention our Jim Beam collection! After all, consider this quote from Eddie Condon:
While your strolling the streets and enjoying the Jazz Festival, drop in and see what we might have in our ‘collection of collections.’ For instance, our Jim Beam collectibles might be of interest.
Jim Beam Collectible Decanters and Go Withs
From the 1980 JIM BEAM Vintage Decanter Fox on a Dolphin South Florida Club Regal China to the Clown Fox Paperweight Figurine Jim Beam Bourbon Whiskey 1980 Regal China and more, you just might find the perfect collectible.
Jim Beam Collectible Decanters and Go Withs
Do enjoy our First Friday and our 3-day Jazz & Blues Festival. Between the exciting performances and films, be sure to stop into Bahoukas Antique Mall & Beer MuZeum. You bet, we’ll be watchin’ for ya!
After centuries of writing with quills dipped in ink, people in the 1800s began embracing fountain pens with internal ink reservoirs that were filled with eyedroppers. Almost until the end of the century, fountain pens were notoriously fickle devices. They routinely leaked and the flow of ink onto the writing surface was uneven.
Fountain pens have always served as the quintessential combination of beauty, tradition, and dexterity. But did you know they’re also tools of environmental consciousness? Join our tour of the fountain pen’s history, infinite varieties, and remarkable powers. With tips for shopping and maintenance. By TIM REDMOND
Thirty-two years ago, when I was a young writer struggling to pay the rent and eat, I walked into an art supply store in San Francisco and put down $120 for a pen.
My friends thought I was nuts: that was, literally, half a month’s rent, a month’s groceries. A pack of ten ballpoint pens went for a buck; what on Earth was I thinking?
Collecting fountain pens has its own vocabulary, just like any other collectible. CLICK HERE for the basics of fountain pens.
Fountain Pen Nibs
A fountain pen nib is the metal writing point at the end of the writing instrument. Virtually all quality fountain pens use solid gold nibs, both for their durability and for the smoothness of the writing experience they provide. Cheaper steel and gold-plated nibs, on the other hand, have a tendency to deteriorate and are harder to customize or repair, whereas a solid gold nib can last a lifetime (and more).
They’re not in a Surprise Box, but it is an interesting shelf. Among the items are old typewriter ribbons and a Pitch Master Tuner. Below is a quote from an article that talks about the movie from 2012 titled “Pitch Perfect.” Yes, there are 3 movies altogether.
Pitch pipes are pitchy. Like, I don’t even know why we use pitch pipes anymore. They sound like dying cats. But we keep using them because they are classic, and at the end of the day everything about a cappella has its roots in the old school, bougie, landed gentry with matching blazers, etc.
Do you remember being in the chorus and having someone use the tuner to get everyone on pitch and ready to sing?
Below is a unique use of the Pitch Pipe as a sound healing tool to tone the instrument of your body, mind, and spirit.
As you see, we learn a lot of things working at Bahoukas Antique Mall. We love sharing it, too. So yep, we’ll be watchin’ for ya. Come on in and pay us a visit.
Developed in the early 1790s, the semaphore consisted of a series of hilltop stations that each had large movable arms to signal letters and numbers and two telescopes with which to see the other stations. Like ancient smoke signals, the semaphore was susceptible to weather and other factors that hindered visibility. A different method of transmitting information was needed to make regular and reliable long-distance communication workable. from History.com
Here is a U.S. Navy training video for using flags to signal:
Can you imagine communicating hilltop to hilltop?
It’s hard for us to picture such a life today, especially when having our phones unavailable for 15 minutes has us acting like we’re lost! Enter the telegraph machine – the beginning of the more reliable and more easily accessible communications.
In 1843, Morse and Vail received funding from the U.S. Congress to set up and test their telegraph system between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Maryland. On May 24, 1844, Morse sent Vail the historic first message: “What hath God wrought!” The telegraph system subsequently spread across America and the world, aided by further innovations.
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The electric telegraph transformed how wars were fought and won and how journalists and newspapers conducted business. Rather than taking weeks to be delivered by horse-and-carriage mail carts, pieces of news could be exchanged between telegraph stations almost instantly. The telegraph also had a profound economic effect, allowing money to be “wired” across great distances.
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Did you know? SOS, the internationally recognized distress signal, does not stand for any particular words. Instead, the letters were chosen because they are easy to transmit in Morse code: “S” is three dots, and “O” is three dashes.
In our last post, we shared a1994 car phone. Today we wanted to show you a 1950s-1060s magnetic dashboard clock. WOW … and now we’re all digital! Did you have a dashboard clock?
We also wanted to share an older pay phone. Golly, I remember that if you passed a pay phone, you immediately walked up and hoped someone had left their change. Now many youngsters wouldn’t even know how to use them.
Stop in and pay us a visit. We welcome you to stroll our very own “Nostalgia Lane.” You might just find the perfect collectible for your home decor or collection. And yes, of course, we’ll be watchin’ for ya!
George gathered up the above items to add to your home or office decor – or to give as a very useful and beautiful gift. More importantly, you’ll always know the weather pattern where you’re at! The tall black case with brass trim includes a thermometer, barometer and hygrometer. We know a thermometer gives us the temperature. But do you know what a barometer or hygrometer tell us?
Temperature and humidity are the two most basic of weather variables and all of us are interested in what they are right now and what they will be in the future. Hygrometers measure the amount of moisture (or water vapor) in the air, commonly referred to as humidity. By knowing the percentage of humidity in the air along with the current temperature, dew point temperature and heat index can be calculated. These factors can be important to those who work and play outside. They are also important to farmers and other agricultural concerns with regard to stress in livestock or plants, or in properly irrigating crops. With an easy-to-read display and fast response time, analog hygrometers offer excellent accuracy and the ability to be calibrated. from weathershack.com
Barometric pressure plays a large part in the ever-changing weather pattern.
As a very loose rule, a high-pressure area will be clear, and a low-pressure area will be cloudy and rainy. from Science: How Stuff Works
The ‘pilot wheel’ is a thermometer created as an advertisement for Carney-Berman Mfg. Other items include “Old Salt” wood carvings, a coffee grinder thermometer, wood framed barometer-thermometer-hygrometer, a plastic Springfield thermometer, a woman silhouette that is a thermometer and an advertisement for Campus Pharmacy. There is also a glass thermometer for fish tanks by H-B Instrument Co., made in Phila PA USA, and a small a/c thermometer.
We doubt that you’ve really thought about all the possibilities for gift-giving available to you at Bahoukas Antique Mall. Be sure to stop in soon and discover for yourself. We’ll be watchin’ for ya!
