“Do you ever lose your temper? If you do, it is when you have to sift the ashes. Isn’t that so? But instead of spoiling your clothes as well as your disposition, you will find it much better to buy a Blanchard Ash Sifter.”
That’s the opening pitch of an advertisement in a local book I discovered recently. Patented in 1884, the Blanchard Ash Sifter “is a new and most excellent thing,” according to a full-page ad. No handle, no crank to turn. You simply dump your ashes into the top, shut the cover, and–bingo–your ashes are deposited instantaneously in one lower drawer while your recycled coals appear in the other drawer. Manufactured in Concord, NH, the Blanchard was no bigger than a barrel.
How did this miraculous device operate? Traditional ash sifters were little more than a square grate with a handle or a slotted spoon like the one used to clean your cat’s litter box. With the Blanchard, gravity did most of the work as the ashes tumbled down through a patented array of grates and chutes. But why? According to the Blanchard Company, fully 20 percent of coal used in heating and cooking was wasted, thrown away with the ashes removed from your stove and fireplace.
At $5 for the stove-sized sifter or $7.50 for the furnace-sized unit, the Blanchard Ash sifter was guaranteed to pay for itself in a single winter. “You cannot afford to do without one,” the ad proclaims, and Blanchard & Sons shipped their products anywhere in the USA for free. With no moving parts, the ash sifter would never wear out, the company claimed.
Another Blanchard ad includes an illustration of a clearly frustrated woman sifting her ashes into a barrel in the open air. The ash sifter, the ad promised, greatly cut down on the use of profanity. The New Hampshire Historical Society in Concord includes one in its collection.
The competing “Hustler Ash Sifter” was made in Worcester, MA, but included a cranking mechanism. The Hustler ad featured a well-dressed girl operating the machine with the bold headline “COAL IS GOLD.”
Copyright J. Dennis Robinson, all rights reserved
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