What we have here is an
"Antique Miners Canary Cage"
from the mid 1800's
Notice the coal dust stained wood and the exquisite shape of this vintage piece of history.
This cage was hand made and was used to 'house a canary' that miners would use and carry as an
'Early Warning System' to detect methane and other poisonous gases that might be harmful or fatal to the miners .
This was a fantastic find, is in great shape and quite possibly saved thousands of lives!
The flash of my camera on a few of the pics, shows some angles looking lighter, but the darker pics show how it really is and how it will appear when you receive it, complete with some of the original coal dust embedded in the wood itself.
This is a great collector's item is small ~ 'about' 6 x 7 x 10 " inches approximately
[eyeballing the size , didn't have a ruler handy, but you can email me & I can get exact size]
Something like this would be very sentimental and special to anyone
that might have been related to some of the early coal miners .
It is very delicately made and will be carefully wrapped and packaged for shipping.
(Below is a little bit of history about the miners canary cage )
Any questions please contact me here on Ebay~!
Thanks for checking out my auction :)
"Antique Miners Canary Cage"
One of coal mining’s earliest systems for warning of the presence of methane gas, the canary in the coal mine, though low-tech, was
extremely effective and rather easy to read: if the bird died, miners had to get out of the shaft.
As coal mines became deeper, so did problems of ventilation.
Gas was an eternal problem in the mines, without adequate oxygen in the air, the miner's would die.
The Solution: taking canaries into the mine. If the canary died, there was gas and the miners needed to leave the pit.
The bright yellow canary birds were an early coal miner's life insurance policy. Carried below ground in cages, the animals' highly sensitive metabolism detected methane and carbon monoxide gas traces that signaled potential explosions, poisoned air or both.
On their web site MSHA (Mine Safety Health Adminstration)says
"Canaries were preferred over mice to alert coal miners to the presence of carbon monoxide underground....
For instance, when consumed by the effects of carbon monoxide, a canary would sway noticeably on his perch before falling."
According to tests conducted by the Bureau of Mines, canaries were preferred over mice to alert coal miners to the presence of
carbon monoxide underground, because canaries more visibly demonstrated signs of distress in the presence of small quantities of the noxious gas.
For instance, when consumed by the effects of carbon monoxide, a canary would sway noticeably on his
perch before falling, a much better indicator of danger than the limited struggle and squatting, extended posture a mouse might assume.
Canaries: Warning System for Coal Miners
Early coal miners didn’t have the special equipment miners have today to measure gas in the air,
so it was impossible to tell if the gases were building up to dangerous levels.
Miners started to use canaries to test the air quality in the mines.
Canaries are very sensitive to carbon monoxide.
The canaries would chirp and sing and make noise all day long.
But, if the carbon monoxide levels got too high, the canaries
would have trouble breathing, and maybe even die.
When the canaries were no longer singing, miners would know that the gas levels were too high.
They would leave the mine quickly to avoid being caught in an explosion.
This is how canaries acted as a warning system for miners.