. . . or at least my fountain does. An inventive German collector converted some of his squirters to tiny bubbling fountains using a small pump, and I was inspired to try with some squirters from my collection. I used a cat water fountain from Petco as the base (by the way, having tried a variety of such pet water fountains, I recommend the Petco product as the cheapest and easiest to clean and maintain), filling the two tiers with decorative aquarium gravel.
I ran a length of aquarium air tubing from the pump into the squirter. This little guy, modeled after the the famed Manneken Pis of Brussels, works exceptionally well, because unlike most squirters, the opening is in his back, rather than the usual top of the head. The opening is also smaller than is typical, allowing for a tight fit of the tubing. I also tested out a number of other squirters from my collection.
These ladies demonstrate why such naughty novelties were not meant to be used as perfume bottles. Not only does the liquid squirt out a surprising distance in a stream, rather than a mist or spray, the fluid heads off in two different directions.
While the most typical type of squirter is a little boy in his nightshirt, this Black version is much harder to find than his White counterparts.
This unusual squirter portrays an early firefighter; he is actually spraying water from a hose coiled behind his right leg. His helmet was designed to keep hot embers and ashes from falling down into his collar and the original was probably made of thick, tough leather.
Not really much I can tell you other than he was made in Germany and most likely dates from the early 1900s. These squirters were popular little naughty novelties and were made by a wide variety of German companies, so without a maker's mark or a company catalog, it is not possible to attribute him to any particular maker.
ReplyDelete