This is even more random, but Harvard's Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants is my single favorite natural history collection anywhere in the world. It alone is worth a trip to Cambridge!

It's incredible to a layperson, and if you've ever done any glass working whatsoever you'll be moved close to tears.

And go see the demos! Or watch their YouTube channel!

Lithography, usually - still widely in use today. Drawings were made or transferred to an etchable surface (initially limestone, then metal) using an etch-resistant substance. Then etching agent (acid, usually) was applied to the surface. Everything was washed and voila, a plate was produced which had a positive image which could be inked and pressed just like letters. By 1938, offset printing might have been employed, which is basically the same thing but with a rubber drum as an intermediary between the plate and the paper.

Lithography is the general term. There are numerous methods depending on the desired result, for instance using an offset can produce full colors pressing one at a time.

https://gallery.lib.umn.edu/exhibits/show/pre-separated-art/...

Yes, I would not be surprised to find most of these drawings were direct reproductions of the original art from when each particular item first became available. Some dating back from decades earlier, others not so much since they all didn't exist that many years earlier.

>Within its 128 pages will be found 2353 individual items, 737 of which have not been listed previously. From the many advances made in the field of glass laboratory apparatus during the past few years, we have attempted to select for listing in this catalog those items of proven worth, and for which there is a definite demand on the part of chemists.

A lot of the same PYREX items used for routine lab testing today are also identical to the ones in this book.

At Florida the original Chemistry Building was from 1917 and when I got there in the early 1970's the full glassblowing department was still there from when most of the specialized items were not available commercially.

Plus research always needs custom work.

Starting my career I always had big old kilo-sized hard-bound catalogs from suppliers of more generalized apparatus, in addition to being PYREX dealers, where plenty of the random illustrations were the same decades-old original art. And that was well into the 1990's.

It was just not that unusual for art like this to remain unchanged for decades.

In the early 1970's the UF labs themselves had never been rebuilt since original construction [0], no air conditioning of course, and as a freshman there were still quite a few pieces of glassware having the old logo about this age or older. Right in some of the drawers of each undergrad's PYREX, stocked for that semester's "experiments".

The old logo is basically exactly as shown on the cover of this catalog, as that baked green colored circle containing fine print around PYREX, strongly marked onto the glass.

I would estimate about 10% or more had survived for decades under assault by butterfingered freshmen without breakage. Anecdotal statistics tell me that a sizable percentage of those had been dropped more than once, and survived. IOW, they bounced :) Overcame the same type impact that had destroyed many of their less-robust brethren.

Last but not least:

>Type 930 Tubing "CORNING" Brand Electrode Glass No. 015 (Mclnnis & Dole)

>Furnished in tubing form with a wall thickness of about 0.5 to 1.2 mm, depending on diameter, and in 3 foot lengths. Of proper composition for use in the fabrication of thin glass membranes for measuring the hydrogen-ion activity or pH. Reference: The Determination of Hydrogen-ions, W. M. Clark, William and Wilkens, Baltimore, 1928; Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, Analytical Edition 37 (1929); Journal of the American Chemical Society, 53 , 4260 (1931); Public Health Reports, Vol. 45, No. 38, Sept. 19, 1930.

>Since " CORNING " Brand No. 015 Glass is not a stable glass , it has a tendency to deteriorate when stored. For this reason it is advisable to purchase this particular glass only in such quantities as are required for current needs.

By the following year (1939) Beckman would commercialize his first instrument, a pH meter, ushering in the era of electronic pH meters using glass electrodes where the glass itself is the high-impedance electrochemical contact.

[0] Remodeling was long overdue after fifty years, even the stairs in the stairwell were halfway worn out. There was an excellent new building right adjacent to it though :)

Edit: Not my downvote, btw, corrective upvote instead :0

Most of the people in my college dorm drank beer from various sizes and shapes of pilfered labware.

To me, they all look like valid beer vessels.

At 250ml it's not far off a half pint.

I don’t think it’s nostalgia, skillful hand drawings are just nice.

It's uncluttered and purposeful.

It's not lost. People can draw like this today. It's just that nobody wants to pay for it.