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Tell Me About Your Favourite Tin
25 Answers
I have a nostalgic fondness for tins - every house and shed had tins when I were a lad. I kept my marbles in a big tin and my cigarette card collections, colouring pencils and crayons in other tins.
Christmas always brought new tins in to the house - I always had a tin of Bluebird toffees, and we were given gifts of a tin of Quality Street, a tin of chocolate biscuits and sometimes a tin of shortbread, too. Those were the days when a tin of Quality Street was an acceptable Christmas present and not plastic tubs you put in your shopping trolley by the dozen and ate in October. Dad had a tin of pipe tobacco.
Every Saturday Gran would give me a travel sweet from her tin - just one! Never knew why she had travel sweets, she never went very far. Never knew why they were called travel sweets, either.
She even gave me bit of snuff from her snuff tin once - never again!
Mom kept money in a tin, to pay the milkman, baker and window cleaner. Our first aid kit was in another tin - plasters, TCP and germolene, as far as I recall.
Dad's shed was full of tins - full of nails, screws, washers, bolts, drill bits.
The heaviest tin of all was the button tin. Kept me occupied for hours when I was a tot - mom would tell me to find all the white ones, or that she needed every button that looked like the one in her hand. It was the mangles that killed the buttons, not poor sewing skills. The sewing kit was in another tin.
Tins came in all shapes and sizes, all colours and patterns. I don't think we ever bought a tin - they just happened to contain the Bisto, Alka Seltzer, tobacco, snuff, biscuits, Elastoplast, golden syrup. The big round ones made great drums.
I bet if you are over 40 you, too, can remember a houseful of tins.
Christmas always brought new tins in to the house - I always had a tin of Bluebird toffees, and we were given gifts of a tin of Quality Street, a tin of chocolate biscuits and sometimes a tin of shortbread, too. Those were the days when a tin of Quality Street was an acceptable Christmas present and not plastic tubs you put in your shopping trolley by the dozen and ate in October. Dad had a tin of pipe tobacco.
Every Saturday Gran would give me a travel sweet from her tin - just one! Never knew why she had travel sweets, she never went very far. Never knew why they were called travel sweets, either.
She even gave me bit of snuff from her snuff tin once - never again!
Mom kept money in a tin, to pay the milkman, baker and window cleaner. Our first aid kit was in another tin - plasters, TCP and germolene, as far as I recall.
Dad's shed was full of tins - full of nails, screws, washers, bolts, drill bits.
The heaviest tin of all was the button tin. Kept me occupied for hours when I was a tot - mom would tell me to find all the white ones, or that she needed every button that looked like the one in her hand. It was the mangles that killed the buttons, not poor sewing skills. The sewing kit was in another tin.
Tins came in all shapes and sizes, all colours and patterns. I don't think we ever bought a tin - they just happened to contain the Bisto, Alka Seltzer, tobacco, snuff, biscuits, Elastoplast, golden syrup. The big round ones made great drums.
I bet if you are over 40 you, too, can remember a houseful of tins.
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In the seventies our house had a peninsula unit in the kitchen, with two semicircular shelves at the end.
On the top shelf was a stack of three circular tins, in reducing sizes. They were mostly turquoise, with circles of other colours.
This was where you could find the family stash of biscuits.
A raid on these after school was known as 'a trip through the tins'.
On the top shelf was a stack of three circular tins, in reducing sizes. They were mostly turquoise, with circles of other colours.
This was where you could find the family stash of biscuits.
A raid on these after school was known as 'a trip through the tins'.
I still have quite a few tins.
One I use often is the liquorice allsorts tin, no idea how long I've had it, but I line it with tin foil and keep things like cream crackers/biscuits in it.
My Mum had loads of tins for everything.
Wish I had kept them all as I expect some will have a value to them now.
One I use often is the liquorice allsorts tin, no idea how long I've had it, but I line it with tin foil and keep things like cream crackers/biscuits in it.
My Mum had loads of tins for everything.
Wish I had kept them all as I expect some will have a value to them now.
Nice question, Barry, full of nostalgia for me. I well remember mother's button tin. During school holidays I would be given a needle and thread and my job was to find sets of buttons and attach them to pieces of card - usually the interleaves from the old Shredded Wheat packets. This would be a morning job whilst she did the household chores and I would then have the afternoon to do something of my choice.
Tobacco tins would be lined up on the shed shelves and were occupied by die taps, washers or whatever. We had to use much bigger tins for screws, nuts and bolts and nails. Many a happy hour was spent trying to find the right size for whatever job was in hand.
We used a small Quality Street tin to keep the metal shove ha'penny coins in, white chalk and a packet of arrowroot - how that used to make the coins fly up the board :)
Tobacco tins would be lined up on the shed shelves and were occupied by die taps, washers or whatever. We had to use much bigger tins for screws, nuts and bolts and nails. Many a happy hour was spent trying to find the right size for whatever job was in hand.
We used a small Quality Street tin to keep the metal shove ha'penny coins in, white chalk and a packet of arrowroot - how that used to make the coins fly up the board :)
The name stuck from it's early days.
//Before aluminium foil
Foil made from a thin leaf of tin was commercially available before its aluminium counterpart. Tin foil was marketed commercially from the late nineteenth into the early twentieth century. The term "tin foil" survives in the English language as a term for the newer aluminium foil. Tin foil is less malleable than aluminium foil and tends to give a slight tin taste to food wrapped in it. Tin foil has been supplanted by aluminium and other materials for wrapping food.
The first audio recordings on phonograph cylinders were made on tin foil.//
//Before aluminium foil
Foil made from a thin leaf of tin was commercially available before its aluminium counterpart. Tin foil was marketed commercially from the late nineteenth into the early twentieth century. The term "tin foil" survives in the English language as a term for the newer aluminium foil. Tin foil is less malleable than aluminium foil and tends to give a slight tin taste to food wrapped in it. Tin foil has been supplanted by aluminium and other materials for wrapping food.
The first audio recordings on phonograph cylinders were made on tin foil.//
You know those Matryoshka Russian dolls? One inside another?
Yes... my father had tins of...................... tins......
He was an engineer, so he had tins and jars of nuts & bolts of all nations as well, but it was most disappointing, as a child, to keep opening tins expecting sweets, only to get...........
.................... more tins :o(
Yes... my father had tins of...................... tins......
He was an engineer, so he had tins and jars of nuts & bolts of all nations as well, but it was most disappointing, as a child, to keep opening tins expecting sweets, only to get...........
.................... more tins :o(
Favourite was very old biscuit tin Aunt E kept her buttons in. Loved to play with that.
Close second the dark blue Bluebird Toffee tin hidden in the parent's wardrobe. Full of bits of information we weren't supposed to see.
Least favourite the Weetabix tin. As a child I was eating a Weetabix and bit onto the skull of a mouse. Mother's complaint to the company resulted in a packet of Weetabix in a tin.
Ferwlew. I did the same for my lad using little tins. Then I discovered the favourite game he and his pals played was to see who could pee in the tins from the greatest distance. :-(
Close second the dark blue Bluebird Toffee tin hidden in the parent's wardrobe. Full of bits of information we weren't supposed to see.
Least favourite the Weetabix tin. As a child I was eating a Weetabix and bit onto the skull of a mouse. Mother's complaint to the company resulted in a packet of Weetabix in a tin.
Ferwlew. I did the same for my lad using little tins. Then I discovered the favourite game he and his pals played was to see who could pee in the tins from the greatest distance. :-(
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