mamills - that's crazy, I used to use a brick to set my iron on. At the time, it was all I could afford as I was 10 and it took me a months allowance just to get the iron, solder, and a few components. I just got the brick from the abandoned house next to mine.
I collect old electrical stuff. My favorite was when I volunteered for the city, we transformed an old office building into a haunted house. We basically demoed the whole thing. The city electrician decided to run a few circuits, all up high and out of the childnren's reach. We have exactly enough outlets, with extra ones in case we need, which are not hooked up.
I walked out of there with so many crazy and expensive things, like 20A 120V IG twist locks, old punchdown blocks for phones, about 70 feet of 50 conductor telephone cable, a buck-boost transformer, exit signs (though not cool ones like the one posted in Nostalgia), 50+ feet of plugmold, baseboard heaters, panic buttons, alarms, and a bunch of other odds and ends. It's all in excellent condition because the building was rewired a year or so before the business closed down, it was in the 1980's when it closed. I ended up selling some of the stock on ebay, but I kept a few twist-locks for some reason. I also kept all the plates, because they had the old plasic plates with a design, rather than just smooth like nowadays.
