I love going to auctions. Went to my first one about ten years ago to buy some old tools for my workshop, got'em and was hooked. Over the years I've got some great deals, a General table saw for forty five bucks was one of my better ones. Some of the stuff you buy comes in a box with a bunch of other stuff and this other stuff occasionally yields some pleasant little surprises. I have an old manual telling farmers about the dangers of those new fangled inventions like electricity and automobiles. I have a Christmas toy flyer circa 1953 with toys I remember my parents buying for me. There's pill boxes for morphine, yard sticks with two number telephone numbers and old glass bottles from a century ago. Last weekend I bought that light pictured above. I thought, when I was bidding on it, that it was an old railroad light but once I looked at it I knew it just didn't fit that genre. So I looked it up. Turned out it's a tail light for a car, a model T car, model A car but a car before they had the electrical system fully worked out. One side is red, facing rear; clear, facing the licence plate and blue/green facing out. The picture below is courtesy of Shorpy.com - one of the best web sites for old photos. Check out the rear of the car. There's my light. Then look at the cat facing, it has the same light on the passenger side front window.
Got it home, filled it with kerosene and fired it up. Works, but then why wouldn't it. It doesn't get much lower tec than this. Now if only I could get a car to go along with it.