Yankee No. 27 Cast Iron Ice Shaver Snowball Cone Ball Maker Pat Apld

For consideration is this antique cast iron snow cone scoop ice shaver made by the Yankee Company in the early 1900s. The hinged lid reads “No. 27 Yankee Pat Apld”. Back when blocks of ice were home delivered to your home, you would scrape this tool over the ice and the bowl would fill up. This old kitchen tool was actually a kitchen essential used for making shaved ice for drinks or snowballs for snow cones or ice balls.

It measures 8 inches long, 2½ inches tall and 3½ inches wide. The patina is natural and somewhat rusty with slight age related corrosion. There are no chips, cracks, breaks or repairs and the steel shaver blade teeth are all present and fully functional. It comes with an aged piece of leather tied through the handle hole for hanging. Buyer will pay shipping on a 2 pound box. Thank you for looking!

NOTE:  Depending on the region of North America, the terms "snowball" and "snow cone" may refer to different things. Where the distinction is made, “snowball” refers to a dessert made of finely shaved ice ("like soft fresh snow"), while “snow cone” contains ice that is coarser and more granular ("crunchy"). In the 1850s the American Industrial Revolution made ice commercially available. Ice houses in New York would commonly sell ice to places like Florida. To transport the ice to Florida, the ice houses would send a wagon with a huge block of ice south. The route to Florida would pass right through Baltimore and there, children would run up to the wagon and ask for a small scraping of ice. Before long, mothers started to make flavoring in anticipation of their child receiving some ice. The first flavor these mothers made was a current Baltimore favorite: egg custard. Egg custard was an easy flavor to make as all that was in it were eggs, vanilla and sugar.

Theaters:  By the 1870s, the snowball's popularity had risen to the degree that in the warm summer months, theaters would sell snowballs to keep their patrons cool. Because of this association with the theater, snowballs were thought of as an upper-class commodity. Signs in theaters instructing patrons to finish their snowballs before coming in to the second act are the earliest tangible evidence of snowballs. In the theaters in Baltimore during the time hand shavers were used to shave the ice. Around the city, snowballs were served on newspaper, but in the classy theaters, butchers' boats were used. In the 1890s, many people started to invent easier ways for snowballs to be made. In that decade, six patents for electric ice shavers were filed.

Great Depression and World War II:  During the Great Depression and World War II, snowballs came to be available outside of Baltimore. As snowballs were so cheap, they were one of the few treats that people could afford. This inexpensiveness earned snowballs the nicknames "Hard Times Sundae" and "Penny Sundae". People in need of a job would sell snowballs as it required little overhead. The treat became more popular during World War II, when all available ice cream was sent to soldiers, creating a need for an icy treat. This new found lack of competition helped snowballs became popular across the country.