Greenerd mailbox

The add says "very heavy" which is true. But I wonder if it would still be by the side of the road come morning.vintage mailbox,industrial cast iron ,mail box stand and base,complete very cool | eBay

Ouch. Hopefully that was broke or irreparable before its current state. That wouldn't last 2 days in my 'hood, it would be stolen and scrapped.

No no just steal the casting and restore it to its original glory,As an arbor press. Make the owner a nice mail box pole out of 4" schedule 80 pipe. When somebody slides off the road and hits it the mailbox wins. The 4" works well as an anvil to re-shape the box.

No no just steal the casting and restore it to its original glory,As an arbor press. Make the owner a nice mail box pole out of 4" schedule 80 pipe. When somebody slides off the road and hits it the mailbox wins. The 4" works well as an anvil to re-shape the box.

Not that cool of a use for an arbor press.

Not that my mail box is cool,but it was knocked down THREE TIMES by careless assholes. I got tired of that,and made a simple stand out of some 2 1/2" square SOLID STEEL bar stock,concreted into the ground. Let them hit THAT!!!! It'll take them a week to dig it out of their engines!!

Not relevant to the use of an arbor press, but this topic gives me the opportunity to satisfy my curiosity. Why do so many US homes have their mail boxes on poles like that? I often see them on films and have seen them first hand in some parts of the US and have never understood the reason. Is it because the postal delivery service will not deliver to the front door? They seem so vulnerable to damage or theft that way. In UK, postal delivery is to a letter box in your front door unless you live a long way down your own gated and locked private country road.

billmac said:

Why do so many US homes have their mail boxes on poles like that? I often see them on films and have seen them first hand in some parts of the US and have never understood the reason. Is it because the postal delivery service will not deliver to the front door?

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Yes, basically, you've got it right.

Long ago, all mail was picked up at "Post Offices", located in most communities.

Then, at some point, within the limits of cities and towns, "door-to-door" delivery began, facilitated by "Mail-carriers" who delivered on foot.

But those residing in more rural locations, still picked their mail up, from a "Post Office Box".

At some point, "Rural Federal Delivery" ( RFD ) was instituted, to serve those out-of-the-way locations, ... and to this day, many such addresses are still known as "RFD box numbers".

Those RFD Mail-carriers deliver from vehicles, to a curbside "Mailbox", of the sort in question.

In the post war era, the lines between "town" and "country" became blurred by the growth of "suburbs" and "housing developments".

Delivering mail to single family homes, on individual lots, was too inefficient for door-to-door service, therefore, curbside mailboxes became the norm for the majority of Americans.

Ok, thanks that makes sense. Our (UK) population density is about 8X that of the US so door to door delivery is a lot more economical.

And now we have gang mailboxes grouped together for a whole neighborhood.
I had to snap a photo of this guy too lazy to not even walk the block the get the mail but he couldn't even get out of the car when he got there.

Smoothbore said:

Long ago, all mail was picked up at "Post Offices", located in most communities.

At some point, "Rural Federal Delivery" ( RFD ) was instituted, to serve those out-of-the-way locations, ... and to this day, many such addresses are still known as "RFD box numbers".

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No doubt it varies by area, but my grandfather mentioned in his memoirs that they had daily mail service delivered by horse in the late 1800s at the farm seven miles outside town. JMO but I find that significant as the town didnt begin municipal snow removal until the late 1930s and they never had utility power until 1947, tho they did have a generator and large battery bank.

Interesting mailbox but definitely not stout enough for me, seems like a waste of a small arbor press if anything. Personally if I was going the recycled arn route, there's plenty of massive flat belt machines to choose from.

When we opened the shop in 1986 as a commercial venture I got some old gears from a gear company in Portland Oregon, the bottom gear is 2" thick by 18" diameter and there are 5 or six progressively smaller welded together in an artistic scene with the mail box at the top.
A guy from the county came by and asked about it, and then said we would have to remove it because some kid devoted to mischief might get hurt hitting it.

I was able to convince him that some of the gears were deep case hardened and a whack with a hammer would break the weld, which is true. But later I heard that there have been lawsuits over people building 3/4" pine around square steel tube set in concrete. The drunken youths get a lawyer after they break their drunk little bodies up as they go down a country lane plowing down mail box posts until they hit the steel one.

It's all screwed up in this country!