Just a quick note on the larger crevice suckers - I have noted with a degree of quizzical amusement the various names for them but have yet to hear one person call them by their proper names. The very first ones made in New Zealand would have been made here in Otago I think and I still have several that are now over fifty years old.
Why buy them when you can make really good ones to your own specification?
They were originally made out of car tyre pumps, brass bodied. The end was blocked up and a pipe put in - the pipe went four or so inches up inside and projected six or so inches. The sucker was put around so it sucked instead of blew out.
If you ever hear of someone referring to them as 'Snifters' then that person has probably been around the goldfields block a few times and a good many years and has a great deal of experience as that is their proper name. If I hear anyone call them by anything else I think first of all 'Here we have a newchum' - 'snifters' are the name for them. I note that some seem to call them sniffers but that is not the name for them - they are SniFTers and this name has been around for well over fifty years. I remember this clearly as I thought back when I was a kid - thats a silly name...so I remembered it!
Today the old car pumps are worth too much and PVC piping is better to use as it is cheaper. I found a good PVC one in the creek in my next door neighbours - finders keepers and especially since no one should have been there.
Theres an old brass one lying in the paddock somewhere on my place and to the best of my knowledge still has a bit of gold in it as it fell off my bike twenty years ago and I have never managed to find it again. The modern commercial (I think) PVC ones are really great and well recommended. The PVC can break but is easily replaced and a spare PVC tube can be carried unlike theold ones which were broken for good when a rock or heavy object crushed in the brass tubing.
Edited by user Friday, 27 May 2011 5:02:34 AM(UTC)
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