Repurposing The Past

The past may be another country; a place we cannot visit and only know fragments about it based upon what has been left behind. And it was just such a fragment that came into my possession a couple of weeks ago in a thrift shop.

Back in the days of Jeeves and Bertie Wooster ladies and gentlemen of refinement carried their cigarettes in silver cigarette cases and those of us for whom silver cases were unattainable we carried them in the original packets until a bright spark hit upon the idea of making a chrome plated version of the silver case that would be less expensive and therefore would be available to a wider (aspirational) customer base.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago and you find me in a thrift store holding said case and handing over a few pounds and leaving as the proud owner of one of these cases; who had no idea what to do with it.

Then it struck me. Whenever I have been travelling with notebooks, pens et cetera the one thing that always seems to end up rolling around in my bag is the spare cartridges and the occasional converter and this little case might be the solution.

So I decided to try out various cartridges from my collection to see what fitted and what did not; and here are the results:

Empty

Full

So there you have it, what could have ended up as no more than a novelty from the past now has a new lease of life as a cartridge caddy.

So next time you are in a thrift shop don’t pass over things until you’ve thought twice about it; remember if you buy it you are doing two good things; giving money to a charity or helping a small trader and you are recycling aka repurposing something.