Like a large untouched roll of a British butcher's butcher paper I recently found and sold, this one feels like it found me, to my eye a perfect readymade which I had no choice but to take home whether it appeals to anyone else or not. I've since learned that the American Steel Wool Manufacturing Company that produced it--founded in 1896 by David Wolf in Greenwich, New York--seems in fact to to have been the first company to bring steel wool to market as a product for common use. I believe this roll dates to those early days, and have included a 1912 advertisement showing this same roll in photos. To my eye it is a beautiful thing formally, between the excellent label and the pinkish paper and the coarse hair-like threads of the steel wool peeking at at either end (and visible through one small hole in paper too.) Like a log of latent potential, or tightly constrained unruliness just waiting (seems like forever now!) to escape! Just one of those found things that feels strangely poignant and potent to me, beyond words.
18" l x 3 1/4" in diameter. Good antique condition with a few tears/looses to the ends of the paper and one small holes, like a peephole! Stable and sound.
You might also like
