One day I'll run out of all my crazy stories...
<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">That's the machine that contributed to my "just for fun" quart mayonnaise jar of mercury. Tons of those things came in as trade-ins and they were automatically scrapped, never repaired for resale. I became an expert at taking the lid apart and cutting out the mercury switches. Put the glass tubes in a pan, crack em open and drain the contents into a jar. "Let's go over to Joe's after school, he's got cool stuff" was very popular. You dropped a little on the sidewalk and watched a zillion little beads scatter in every direction. I guess some of it made it to the gutter and into the County drainage system which emptied into SF Bay. Hey, we were little kids and just didn't know. It's the wonder we didn't all get sick and die although I do have non-related (I think) cancer today. </span>