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Somewhere in San Francisco circa 1919. "Ford motor truck -- Kruger & Co. Boxes." 5x7 glass negative by Christopher Helin. View full size.
Max J Ballen, general junk dealer, grader of woolen rags and paper stock, 124-130 Harriet, tel Park 2033
These days, when we think of "boxes", we mostly think of folding cartons: cardboard boxes that are shipped flat from the box manufacturer to the user. The user (cereal maker, appliance maker, whatever) assembles ("erects". Yup.) the box often as part of their production process, fills it with their product, seals it, ships it. But for many years, boxes were shipped "set up" from the box plant, so they were mostly shipping air: hence the light construction of this truck body. Apparently Kruger made light wood boxes (cigar boxes? fruit boxes? Who knows?) as "shook" is the term for wooden box parts, which they made on site. There's still a thriving cardboard "set-up box" trade, but it is dwarfed by the folding carton industry.
The building seen through the wobbly glass is the only apparent survivor from this scene:
Even stone sober, anyone would probably drive like they're drunk while looking through that.
That's some pretty rough bottle glass on the windshield.
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