The Wilkins Coffee Disaster

DH and I visited an estate sale last Saturday. At every estate sale, there is the “woman’s room” filled with handmade afghans, lacey items, hats, etc. The “man’s room” will have fedora hats, pipes, tobacco cannisters, etc. Somewhere in the house will be some kind of medical equipment — the white plastic seats for the shower, a walker, or perhaps a hospital bed.

Sometimes, it seems the people just left. We open their drawers and look at their Christmas linens, we raid their children’s abandoned Creative Playthings wooden toys, and consider the 1950s era tea cannisters or, in rare cases, a Heywood-Wakefield dining room table.

What we found at this most recent sale included pencils in cases that actually gave directions — “push” — on how to open them. That is how new the concept of a pencil box was in the 50s or 60s, I suppose. DH found a Wilkins Coffee cannister (see the ad from youtube below).

When we got home, he opened the cannister. A fine dusting of black powder escaped and covered the floor, covered our Heywood-Wakefield buffet, covered his feet, got on the baby’s hands, my feet, the baby’s feet. The black substance spread and spread. Was it coffee? Ink? Nuclear waste? (Maybe that last guess sounds odd, but I HAVE seen warheads waiting to be shipped to Iraq in someone’s basement. Ah, Washington!) DH wiped the substance up, and it seemed to spread more.

DH figured out was it was.

Graphite.

The man who originally owned the cannister had been a locksmith, and the cannister was filled with graphite. I can still taste the black powder in my mouth.

Drink Wilkins Coffee or Die Indeed!