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Time Capsules (Things Stored For Future Folks' Reference)

Yithian

Parish Watch
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This local news story makes me feel rather melancholy. The future probably won't turn out as you had hoped, no matter how hard you hope it:

Time capsule found 106 years on

Published on Monday 13 June 2011 19:43

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Rev Mark Haynes and former Wesley Chapel steward and secretary Lynne Reed with the disinterred time capsule. It contains a copy of the Times dated 26 April 1905 and a copy of Joyful News from the same month. Photo by Dave Barry.

A MESSAGE in a bottle which was buried more than 105 years ago has been unearthed.

The time capsule, which is packed with newspapers dated April 28 1905, was uncovered by builders who have been demolishing Wesley Methodist Church, which stood on the corner of Hoxton Road and Columbus Ravine.

Lynne Reed, who was church steward and secretary at Wesley Methodist Church, told the builders to look out for the time capsule after learning that the church’s founders left the gift for future generations.

“It’s amazing to think that someone put it there more than a century ago,” she said.

“I knew they had put a time capsule in, but I couldn’t find anything else out about it. We knew it had been put under the first foundation stone but we had no real indication of where that was.

“I was hoping they would find it but I wasn’t really expecting it. I was delighted when they said it had been discovered.”

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Included within the capsule is a copy of The Times and a religious newspaper. The newspapers are so tightly packed that it has so far been impossible to see what other newspapers or notes were left.

The bottle was shown to the congregation at Westborough Methodist Church, where many former Wesley Methodist Church members now worship, last Sunday.

Rev Mark Haynes said: “I was confident they would find it because it was well-documented that it was there. People have been very interested, especially those who are into local history.

“We still don’t know exactly what is in there - I’m not sure we want to disturb it. We need some expert advice from someone who knows about the preservation of news print.”

Rev Haynes added that the time capsule may be stored in a room at Westborough Methodist Church dedicated to the history of Wesley Methodist Church.

Wesley Church was built in 1905 after the congregation at a church in Nelson Street outgrew the premises.

A report in the Scarborough Mercury, dated April 28 1905, said: “For over 30 years the building known as the Nelson Street Wesleyan Chapel has done duty for the Wesleyans of that district, a district that has grown considerably of late, and still steadily increases.

“For a long time now the accommodation has not been sufficient and there has been a growing need for a more spacious building in which to worship.”

However, the church closed its doors in 2006 after membership dropped to just 31 members.

http://www.scarborougheveningnews.co.uk ... _1_3474851
 
Ah, Scarborough. One of my favourite places. It is a shame to see the decline of our traditional places of worship. Even though I am as guilty as anyone in never attending church, it is another aspect of our historically traditional community based lifestyle which has gone. Perhaps forever. The small community I live in has now no church at all (or Mosque, Synagogue or anything else) when I was a child there was a C of E Church, a Roman Catholic Church and a Wesleyan chapel all within a few hundred yards of each other - all were quite well attended.
 
How had I not heard of this?

"And then there’s the Oglethorpe University time capsule in Atlanta, Georgia. Not content to simply bury a box or a tube, Oglethorpe and its then-president, Dr. Thornwell Jacobs, buried an entire room. Known as the Crypt of Civilization, the “capsule” was once a swimming pool and measures 20 feet long, 10 feet high, and 10 feet wide. Though its foundation was already waterproof, Jacobs had additional protective measures added, including a thick stainless steel door that was welded into place when the room was sealed on May 28, 1940."

:)

The complete inventory is here.

I see it includes "1 Negro Doll" - yup, very 1940!
"1 glass bookend (girl’s head)" - they did things differently then.
"1 plastic bird, 1 plastic ash tray"
"1 lady’s breast form"
"6 packages wooden forks and spoons set toy paints, 1 tea bowl, 1 package fish hooks, 1 package drapery pins, 1 June bug spinner, 1 package curtain rings, 1 fly, 2 toy watches, 1 pocket knife"

etc. etc.

It is a real load of tat isn't it! :eek:
 
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It sounds like a still life set for use within a flimsy cabin during a White Sands nuclear warhead test, circa 1950.

That, or some very-poor selections to 'help' someone survive the apocolypse.

Also reminds me a bit of a grave goods display from a Pathe newsreel at The Festival of Britain....
 
Resurrecting this old thread to post this, as I found it very interesting, yet there's something a bit sad about it as well.

From Wikipedia:
Miss Belvedere is the nickname given to a new desert gold and sand dune white two-tone 1957 Plymouth Belvedere sport coupe, with only four miles on the odometer, that was sealed for 50-years in a time capsule vault below the ground on the Tulsa City courthouse site on June 15, 1957. The car was sealed in the underground concrete vault as part of the city of Tulsa's "Tulsarama" Golden Jubilee Week festivities celebrating Oklahoma's 50th year of statehood. Miss Belvedere was intended to be a prize awarded upon the vehicle's unearthing to the individual, or their descendant, who came nearest to guessing Tulsa's population in 2007.

These kind of things make my mind race, just thinking of all the time slipping by. Of course 50 years is not really that long in the grand scheme of things but think of how much has changed in those intervening years*. Think of everything that's been happening whilst that car was down there, simply being, waiting, in the darkness.

Unfortunately it didn't quite go to plan, as they failed to make the concrete chamber waterproof (though they did claim it could survive a nuclear attack... :rolleyes:) So rather than just being, the car was actually down there basically rotting away. But that too is fascinating in its own way - you can imagine the water slowly creeping up, the gradual corrosion, little bits dropping off now and then. All of it under the passing feet of hundreds of thousands of people. Some of the people who saw the car going into the ground are now gone, including it would seem the man who won the competition :(. A mundane piece of metal has come to signify so much more by its simultaneous transformation and stasis (oo-er, this is getting very metaphysical - it's late at night!). Anyway, I thought it worthy of note.

There's a very good thread here with lots of pictures of the car going in... and coming out.

*I noted that included in the items left with the car were the contents of what was considered a "typical" woman's handbag. The list included "tranquilizer pills [and] an unpaid parking ticket". Those women, eh? o_O
 
good thread Novena. A quitation:

"The car was then wrapped in what was supposed to be a vacuum sealed protestant and then lowered into what was supposed to be a tomb that could withstand a nuke attack. Too bad they didn't think about water leaking in...."

what is a vacuum sealed protestant?
 
good thread Novena. A quitation:

"The car was then wrapped in what was supposed to be a vacuum sealed protestant and then lowered into what was supposed to be a tomb that could withstand a nuke attack. Too bad they didn't think about water leaking in...."

what is a vacuum sealed protestant?
Like this, but protestant?

article-2307713-193E4E9B000005DC-456_634x632.jpg
 
what is a vacuum sealed protestant?
It's a protectant which has suffered meaningful changes due to a reformation.

Many spell-checkers seem to show some kinds of religious or political bias. For example, every time I type "pope", my phone translates that to 'pipe'. And if I type "Trump" it changes it to 'tramp'.

It's like playing a continuous accidental game of Scrabble with a short-sighted elderly relative...
 
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Their archive will be closing within the next few weeks....you now have a chance to make your mark for all eternity. Well, a few thousand years....

http://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...ving-a-website-for-ten-thousand-years/482385/

Archiving a Website for Ten Thousand Years
After shutting down, an online community plans to preserve its data on a micro-etched metal plate.

"In May 1940, Thornwell Jacobs, the president of Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, dedicated a 2,000-square-footCrypt of Civilization intended to be sealed until May 28, 8113 C.E. He picked that date as the marker of a duration into the future equal to that which had passed since the oldest surviving recorded history, some 6,200 years prior. The crypt contained about 640,000 pages of text reproduced on microfilm. It also housed technological artifacts and bric-a-brac, along with a windmill-powered generator to play back audio and film recordings.

Hi.co, a website that allows its users to post “moments” with a photo and annotation, plans a similar trip to the distant future. The operators, Craig Mod (who has also previously written for The Atlantic) and Chris Palmieri, announced today that the site will freeze service in September 2016. However, all posts present in the site’s database at that time will be microprinted onto a two-by-two-inch nickel plate. The entire site—2,000,000 words and 14,000 photos—should fit on a single disk. Several copies will be made and distributed across the globe; the Library of Congress has already been secured as a repository. The plates have a lifespan as long as 10,000 years, and they may be viewed with a 1,000-power optical microscope."
 
Resurrecting this old thread to post this, as I found it very interesting, yet there's something a bit sad about it as well.

From Wikipedia:


These kind of things make my mind race, just thinking of all the time slipping by. Of course 50 years is not really that long in the grand scheme of things but think of how much has changed in those intervening years*. Think of everything that's been happening whilst that car was down there, simply being, waiting, in the darkness.

Unfortunately it didn't quite go to plan, as they failed to make the concrete chamber waterproof (though they did claim it could survive a nuclear attack... :rolleyes:) So rather than just being, the car was actually down there basically rotting away. But that too is fascinating in its own way - you can imagine the water slowly creeping up, the gradual corrosion, little bits dropping off now and then. All of it under the passing feet of hundreds of thousands of people. Some of the people who saw the car going into the ground are now gone, including it would seem the man who won the competition :(. A mundane piece of metal has come to signify so much more by its simultaneous transformation and stasis (oo-er, this is getting very metaphysical - it's late at night!). Anyway, I thought it worthy of note.

There's a very good thread here with lots of pictures of the car going in... and coming out.

*I noted that included in the items left with the car were the contents of what was considered a "typical" woman's handbag. The list included "tranquilizer pills [and] an unpaid parking ticket". Those women, eh? o_O
I remember seeing this on TV. It might have been one of those programmes about custom car building, and the custom car builders were asked to look at what was left of the car. It was such a useless wreck, I seem to recall they couldn't do much with most of the car, so they had to cannibalise another car for parts.
 
One of the interesting aspects of that programme on the Severn Bridge is the lengths they go to to prevent corrosion in this windy maritime location.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...-bridge-at-50-a-high-wire-act?suggid=b07tmmwy

The main support cables are surrounded by tubes, through which air is pumped all the time. And every now and again this tube is removed so that the cables can be opened up to check that there is no corrosion in any of the hundreds of steel strands that make up the cables. So far, after 50 years, they're looking good!
 
Is the building strong enough to withstand 6000 years?

Couldn't they have waited until WWII was over and the outcome known?

Is the Chicago Vitreous Enamel Company still going?
 
... Is the Chicago Vitreous Enamel Company still going?

No - at least not under that name. Chicago Vitreous Enamel Company (aka CVE) was one of the, if not the, largest manufacturer of enameled metal signs (now collectible antiques).

One of their claims to fame was their post-WW2 spinoff business building and marketing Lustron metal panel pre-fabricated houses (a tangential, but interesting story, in itself).

I found a collector's listing of enamel / porcelain signage producers that listed CVE as an active manufacturer from 1930 to 1980. That's the latest date for which I can find any mention of CVE.

EDIT to add: The sign indicates the pictured portion of the Crypt of Civilization was 'fabricated' by CVE. I presume this means CVE produced the panels lining the walls.
 
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Without in any way wishing to detract from the earnest intent of this project's originators, may I say that reading the full inventory evokes for me a visit to a back-street charity shop circa 1997. I can almost smell and taste the atmosphere in that room, right now.

For being reportedly a converted swimming pool, I feel it is not really a large quantity of items (and nor are they, themselves, especially bulky).

A constant theme within the inventory is that of 'new' man-made materials (rubber substitutes, proto-plastics/bakelite, and very mild technology examples (eg binoculars).

However, I somehow strongly feel that it does resonate with the overall look & feel of an Egyptian tomb containing grave goods.

Not so much items for the afterlife, but more an exposition of 1930s neophy, quasi-luxuries that only really started to become an attainable consumer reality in the post-war 1950s and '60s.

It will all still be quite colourful in there. Plastics in primary pastels. Bright yellow Formica. Shiny cheerful brown bakelite. And the deep lustre of nickle-chrome.
 
No - at least not under that name. Chicago Vitreous Enamel Company (aka CVE) was one of the, if not the, largest manufacturer of enameled metal signs (now collectible antiques).

One of their claims to fame was their post-WW2 spinoff business building and marketing Lustron metal panel pre-fabricated houses (a tengential, but interesting story, in itself).

I found a collector's listing of enamel / porcelain signage producers that listed CVE as an active manufacturer from 1930 to 1980. That's the latest date for which I can find any mention of CVE.

EDIT to add: The sign indicates the pictured portion of the Crypt of Civilization was 'fabricated' by CVE. I presume this means CVE produced the panels lining the walls.

I lived down the street from one of those houses, about 25 years ago. That would mean it was 40 years old or so at the time, and it appeared to have held up remarkably well. I think I read that the company advised regular waxing, but I could have imagined that. That particular house had not been remodeled or otherwise molested, and looked just about like it did when it was new. Pretty interesting product that came about because of the post-war housing "shortage" in the US.
 
TIP: There's no guarantee a time capsule can or will be retrievable unless its originators ensure its exact location is known and recorded for future reference.

Classmates can’t find time capsule buried 30 years ago
Former classmates reunited in Michigan to uncover a time capsule buried 30 years ago. The result? They couldn’t find it.

The seven classmates and two teachers spent two hours Sunday digging outside Coloma Junior High in southwestern Michigan. Tracy Gilmer said she remembers putting a Michael Jackson cassette in the box in 1988, along with assignments from an accelerated writing-and-reasoning program, including a fictional country.

“We had our own constitution and I actually sewed a flag for our country. I think the flag is in” the time capsule, she told The Herald-Palladium .

A teacher, Sandi Sanders, said information about the capsule was filed away but lost. Some wonder if rebellious classmates dug it up.

“We are all kind of in the dark trying to remember what was in it and where it is,” Sanders said.

Coloma Superintendent Dave Ehlers said the box may have been unearthed earlier when work was performed to alleviate flooding behind the school. The group might use a different metal detector and keep hunting.

“It was an English class,” Sanders said. “We didn’t know how to measure.”

SOURCE: https://apnews.com/e892daf88b0d4eba...s-can't-find-time-capsule-buried-30-years-ago

 
TIP: There's no guarantee a time capsule can or will be retrievable unless its originators ensure its exact location is known and recorded for future reference.



SOURCE: https://apnews.com/e892daf88b0d4eba...s-can't-find-time-capsule-buried-30-years-ago

Reminds me of my high school class. We never were very together. Lots of good people, but we just were not one of those classes that did stuff together or got very organized most of the time. The last reunion I heard about ended up being a handful of people who finally managed to get together in a bar. In a different town, for some reason. I can see us maybe getting a time capsule together, burying it, then not just being unable to locate it, but completely forgetting about it.
 
At face value, this story represents a minor mystery. In reading it the first time my sputtering morning mind skipped past this obvious interpretation and I began chuckling over the pun-derived hypothesis this "time capsule" may have been an intentional "time placebo."
Time capsule from 50 years ago has nothing inside

Officials in a New Hampshire town are trying to figure out how a recently opened time capsule from 50 years ago has nothing in it.

Library director Cara Potter in Derry tells WMUR-TV that since she started there five years ago, the safe has been sitting on a shelf. Before that, it was kept at the old municipal building in town.

The combination was on the back of the safe. Potter said it took several tries to get it open recently on the 50th anniversary of when it was sealed in 1969. But it was empty.

No one has a list of what was originally put inside.

Officials said they have no idea who could have opened it and taken the items. They even speculated that nothing was put in there in the first place.

SOURCE: https://www.apnews.com/34a27b5179dd4fce8f38c6b6e8ba7a17
 
Reminds me of the Blue Peter (long-running UK children's TV show) time capsules, which were buried in their special garden and when they were dug up in the year 2000 the contents were ruined with water and mud. So they tried again, for a capsule to be opened in 2050 - builders dug it up accidentally, about five years later.

Moral: just put your time capsule contents in a cupboard.
 
This new story describes the contents of an 1887 Utah time capsule that wasn't opened until this past week.
Here's what was inside a 132-year-old time capsule

This time capsule has been through a lot.

It was first buried in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1887, after being put together by a school run by Protestants who were dedicated to converting Mormons through education.

When that school was demolished in 1959, the time capsule was uncovered. Someone opened it, but then left it at the school district office, where it sat in a closet for years.

It was finally unveiled publicly Wednesday, during an event at Utah's Division of Archives and Records.

Inside there was kind of a little bit of everything: newspapers, a list of the church's members, photographs, a student autograph book. There were even small items like a button, ribbons and a pebble.

And -- a single pristine stick of gum in its original wrapping.

"It appears that ... people were able to just drop things in at the very end," said Alan Barnett, the local government archivist who led the public unveiling. That provided people a chance to "contribute a piece of themselves," he told CNN.

The capsule tells the story of early education in Utah, and some of the conflict between Mormons and non-Mormons, he said.

But it also goes deeper, in showing the ways people want themselves and their work to be remembered, Barnett said.

"I think that's what time capsules are about," he said. "It's a way of perpetuating the memory of what they felt was really important work, of educating and converting Mormons."
SOURCE: https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/18/us/time-capsule-utah-school-trnd/index.html
 
This January 2015 news item describes the opening of a Boston time capsule produced by Paul Revere and Samuel Adams. In contrast to some of the modern time capsules mentioned above, the contents of this one were in remarkably good condition after more than two centuries.
1795 time capsule opened, centuries after Revere and Adams buried it

More than 200 years after Samuel Adams and Paul Revere first buried it in Boston, it took an hour to remove all the objects crammed inside a tiny time capsule.

Onlookers anxiously watched the unveiling Tuesday, worrying the items might not have weathered the years very well.

"Could we actually go through the whole box, or would things prove too fragile to take out?" said Malcolm Rogers, director of Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. "It was like brain surgery, with history looking down on us."

Piece by piece, Pam Hatchfield, head of objects conservation for the museum, removed each item, whispering "wow" as she first caught a glimpse of some of them.

Among the stash Hatchfield removed from the 1795 time capsule: Five folded newspapers, a Massachusetts commonwealth seal, a title page from Massachusetts colony records and at least 24 coins.

And at the bottom, an inscribed rectangular silver plate, "probably made by Paul Revere and engraved by him," Rogers said.

"That was the treasure at the end," he said. ...

It took seven hours to remove the time capsule from the Massachusetts State House in December, and more than four hours before Tuesday evening's ceremony for officials to loosen the screws that were holding it shut. ...

The box-shaped capsule was placed in the State House cornerstone in 1795 by Revere, the metalsmith, engraver and Revolutionary War hero; Adams, the brewer and governor of Massachusetts; and William Scollay, a local developer, when construction began. Revere was responsible for overlaying the State House dome with copper.

The time capsule measured 5.5 x 7.5 x 1.5 inches, officials said.

It's not the first time the box has been uncovered. In 1855, during some other repairs, the time capsule was removed and its contents cleaned, only to be put back in the cornerstone for almost 160 years -- with a few objects added. The box's materials were noted in reports of the time. ...


Newspapers inside the box were in "amazingly good condition," Hatchfield said.

The large number of copper coins inside might have helped protect the artifacts, she said, since copper helps block the growth of fungus.

The collection of coins recovered from the time capsule included half-cent, one-cent, half-dime, 10-cent and 25-cent coins. Another set of coins included a pine tree shilling from 1652 and a copper medal showing George Washington. ...

If they were to go up for sale, the objects inside the box would fetch a pretty penny -- not because they're rare, but because of the history behind them, said Sebastian Clarke, an appraiser for the PBS program "Antiques Roadshow." ...

But don't expect to see these objects showing up at any auction.

After the conservation process is finished, they'll go on display at the museum. And eventually, the time capsule and its contents will be placed again in the cornerstone of the Massachusetts State House, said William F. Galvin, secretary of the commonwealth. ...

SOURCE: https://www.cnn.com/2015/01/06/us/feat-paul-revere-sam-adams-boston-time-capsule/index.html
 
It took some effort to (re-)discover the location of this Niagara Falls time capsule, buried in 1975.
Dude, where's the car? Buried Oldsmobile sought at Artpark

Two college professors spent a cool, gray morning at Artpark on Friday seeking buried treasure.

They were hunting for a time capsule — an Oldsmobile that was buried in a hill near a former boardwalk there in 1975, an era when the facility welcomed the most avante garde artists of the day.

“There’s an art installation beneath our feet,” explained Lisa Marie Anselmi, an archeologist, working with Kevin Williams, an earth science, geology and astronomy professor and an expert in ground penetrating radar.

Anselmi, who is more accustomed to digs at Beaver Island where she and her students hunt tools made by native Americans, and Williams, whose research on the geology of Mars received funding from NASA, were volunteering their time to find the time capsule car. ...

... On Friday, the technology was used to find the perimeter of the buried car, which is an estimated 8 feet beneath the surface.

This wasn’t just any old car. The 1968 tail-finned Vista Cruiser was filled to the brim with artifacts of the period, from magazines to beauty products, toys to diaries. ...

Tanis Winslow, a spokesperson for Artpark, said the project is just as cutting edge now as it was back in 1975.

Winslow noted that after several hours of searching the grounds, the car may have been located. “I believe we’ve found the location,” Winslow said, adding that the professors have to go back to their labs and work with their students to analyze the findings of the radar equipment to be certain.

What’s going to be done with the car? Will the site finally have a marker of some sort? Will the car and its treasure trove of 1975 artifacts be dug up and displayed?

Winslow declined to answer, noting that once the car is found, discussions will begin about how to proceed.

It is likely that the car, which was encased in cement, covered in tar, plastic and a net of old tires — intended to be buried for only 25 years — will someday be unearthed, its 30 or so suitcases opened and its treasures revealed.
FULL STORY: https://www.niagara-gazette.com/new...cle_fb4cc93a-d9b8-11e8-b2bc-6b1a5e8edaf5.html
 
Can't see that website for 'legal reasons'.

In case these may be accessible, here are two 2018 articles describing earlier attempts to locate the 1975 time capsule buried inside an Oldsmobile.

Can you dig it? Buried treasure at Artpark holds a key to the super '70s
https://buffalonews.com/2018/10/26/artpark-buried-car-time-capsule-70s/

Artpark works with Buffalo State, cultural ambassador on historical/educational project
https://www.wnypapers.com/news/arti...l-ambassador-on-historicaleducational-project
 
In case these may be accessible, here are two 2018 articles describing earlier attempts to locate the 1975 time capsule buried inside an Oldsmobile.

Can you dig it? Buried treasure at Artpark holds a key to the super '70s
https://buffalonews.com/2018/10/26/artpark-buried-car-time-capsule-70s/

Artpark works with Buffalo State, cultural ambassador on historical/educational project
https://www.wnypapers.com/news/arti...l-ambassador-on-historicaleducational-project
Those worked fine. Thanks.
 
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