OK, time for yet another episode of name this thing!

November 25, 2016 10:25 AM

My friend bought a mysterious antique thing. It looks like a cage, only it has no top, just sides and a bottom. The front is hinged and can open forward. It looks like this. Please do tell what you think it is.
posted by pickles_have_souls to Grab Bag (19 answers total)

Old milk crate?
posted by BlueHorse at 10:32 AM on November 25, 2016 [13 favorites]

I think BlueHorse named it.
posted by she's not there at 10:38 AM on November 25, 2016

The thing that gets me is the plate on the side closest to the camera, there's obviously something there used to attach it to something. My guess is some sort of luggage rack for ATVs or cars.
posted by FirstMateKate at 10:41 AM on November 25, 2016

I'm on the milk crate bandwagon, I think the plate on the front was just where there was originally a company name or label.
posted by jferg at 10:52 AM on November 25, 2016

Based on my history in restaurant work, I'm picturing multiple ones of these on a rolling rack or stacked in the back of a truck. Now you'll see bread in flat open-topped plastic crates, but this looks to me like it might be a precursor to such things. Perhaps the front opening is a way of accessing the contents. I googled "vintage metal milk crate" and most of them were deeper and more square but there is one that looks like your friend's at this site.
posted by Orlop at 10:52 AM on November 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

It looks like the plate on the front says "pop and shop inc".
posted by she's not there at 10:53 AM on November 25, 2016

The front is hinged and can open forward

It might be a metal display crate, and the plate of the front where the price or label would go. Does it look like it could be stacked?
posted by lmfsilva at 10:55 AM on November 25, 2016

It looks like the plate on the front says "pop and shop inc".

Stop And Shop
posted by rhizome at 10:57 AM on November 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

Part of a shopping cart, then?
posted by sageleaf at 11:01 AM on November 25, 2016 [3 favorites]

Definitly and old milk crate. I remember them from childhood. They are now used for many other DIY projects.
posted by donaken at 11:53 AM on November 25, 2016

Part of a shopping cart, then?

That was my original thought too, but a shopping cart basket probably wouldn't have handles on the sides like this basket has.
posted by Johnny Assay at 12:12 PM on November 25, 2016

Old crab pot? With a missing top.
posted by It'sANewDawn at 12:13 PM on November 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yep, former grocery worker, that's what glass-bottled milk gets delivered in.
posted by klangklangston at 12:29 PM on November 25, 2016 [5 favorites]

It looks too big to be a milk crate, and the front opening feature would not be used on milk crates. Also, the dairies supplied the crates, not the supermarkets, so it if says Stop and Shop, it's not a milk crate.

I believe it was a general all purpose merchandise shipping crate rather than specifically for milk. A local Stop & Shop market might need, from the warehouse, a variety of items in quantities less than a full case (slow moving items like oddball spices, sauces, etc.) which would be shipped to the stores in crates like this. The crates were made to stack, the fronts opened so that you could reach in and retrieve a couple of items as needed, and the plate held a label indicating what was inside, or which store it should be delivered to.
posted by beagle at 12:38 PM on November 25, 2016

They had something very similar at the public pool I remember as a kid in early 1970's that you would toss your clothes in and they'd give you a claim ticket and then stash the baskets on some shelves behind the counter.
posted by humboldt32 at 12:59 PM on November 25, 2016

I believe pinterest has your answer.

And eBay.
posted by Toddles at 7:21 PM on November 25, 2016

I don't think it's a milk crate, because all those I have seen were a bit deeper and had wires in a grid to separate the bottles (to keep glass from bumping against glass). I think beagle is on the money.
posted by brianogilvie at 6:55 AM on November 26, 2016

Definitely a milk crate, from before The Age of Plastic.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 9:01 AM on November 26, 2016

There are other types of metal milk crates, but, again, I can tell you that milk in glass bottles was delivered to the grocery store I worked at in those cages. I don't remember ever using the hinged opening, but my guess would be to let the bottles be slid in while filling the crate. I also know ours didn't have our grocery name on them, but wouldn't be surprised if they had the names on them to designate delivery or that this particular one was repurposed.

Who knows? Maybe the dairy that we got our glass-bottled milk from was an outlier and used these crates idiosyncratically. I know that at the time (early 2000s) delivering whole milk in glass bottles was an outlier in the market overall. But that was what they used.
posted by klangklangston at 5:17 PM on November 29, 2016