A friend of mine is selling this kitschy little vintage "Swing Smoke" ashtray. It's all legs and holes (nobody is complaining) and though the actual meaning of "swing" here seems a bit lost on me (swing shift smoke break? sexy swinger? swing from a chandelier?), there is absolutely no debating where one is supposed to insert their nasty little coffin nail (is that supposed to be a pair of lips?!) "Made in Japan" it says on the bottom, further answering for the overall weirdness factor of it all. Also below is a very large, early 80's Philips tanning bed advertising poster that I found, featuring a lovely lady in a swimsuit promoting the idea of tanning beds, uh, while not even actually laying inside of a tanning bed. I imagine most sensible people would prefer to be on a white sandy beach somewhere tropical and catching rays than in an automated, glowing glass press in some tiny strip mall backroom in chilly Wisconsin...
6 comments:
That ashtray certainly is, unique. I wonder where these risqué type items were sold before Spencer's started selling them, through mail order or the back row of tourist traps?
I am only guessing but maybe the opening was meant to hold short wooden matches.
The poster for sunlamps is eye catching, even though they are not featuring the product.
interesting finds, thanks for the post.
Hmm. That's weird (and also a little unnerving in a David Cronenberg sort of a way). I wonder if there is a missing piece? I have a pair of French ceramic salt and pepper shakers that bob their skull heads on rockers. Of course, the noggin parts can be removed, and then the thing looks really weird without them. I wonder if you insert some kind of "swinging" torso part into that hole? And maybe it holds a lighter?
I do quite like the secret little buns sculpted on the unpainted bottom. That part's clearly never seen a tanning bed.
Ranit through Google lens andthe other examples look exactly the same, so unless they’re all missing some other attachment I would say this is exactly the way it was made to look
I didn't have as much luck with an image search as you did, but I did find lots of examples of "naughty nodders" in which the legs element is the removable part that swings. Without that element, those ashtrays look similarly weird.
Anyway, it's just a hypothesis. It'll be hard to prove or disprove with such a rare item. But it's equally hard for me to accept the thing is supposed to look like this.
Rather off putting. Imagine it as an eyeless bipedal monster with a giant mouth out to gulp you down.
I do have to say, as all kinds of queasy that ash tray makes me, I do appreciate that they went all-in and molded a butt on the bottom where you'd likely never see it.
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