Take 10 grams of Opium and call me in the morning.
October 3, 2008 3:41 AM   Subscribe

Vintage poison labels. "One year I put them on the cocktail glasses at my Halloween party." Via BoingBoing (no Katamari/papercraft/steampunk/DRM content).
posted by mattholomew (29 comments total) 33 users marked this as a favorite
 
Downloadable zip file of the images at 150 dpi. Yay!

Thanks for the post. You just can't have too many skull pictures, as far as I'm concerned.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:23 AM on October 3, 2008


I smell a DIY idea I will never accomplish!
posted by parmanparman at 4:24 AM on October 3, 2008 [4 favorites]


Insectodeth is my favorite band.
posted by twoleftfeet at 4:35 AM on October 3, 2008


I love how all of the skulls seem to be very happy.
posted by drinkcoffee at 5:11 AM on October 3, 2008


posted "'One year I put them on the cocktail glasses at my Halloween party.' Via BoingBoing (no Katamari/papercraft/steampunk/DRM content)."

No need to apologize for the BoingBoing connection. ;)

Because in the best of all possible worlds, one of these (truly aesthetically lovely) stickers could could be permanently affixed to every (extant, non-mulched) copy of Cory Doctorow's "novels" (even the ones that, due to popular demand, are (thankfully) available only in dead-pixel formats).

And then of the remaining two stickers, one could be attached to BoingBoing's Disemvoweling Engine (perhaps to one of its many superfluous but way cool brass pipes), and the very last sticker to that enormous (and probably also brass pipe decorated) edifice, Cory Doctorow's Endlessly Self-Promoting Sense of Self Importance.

(I just woke from the most terrible dream (yes, really), that I'd been shanghaied aboard an endless transatlantic flight consisting entirely of costumed weirdos uh freaks uh fans on their way to some TV-show "science fiction" convention, all feverishly buying and selling vibrating G'ould crystals and Klingon sanitary napkins and Wookie pelts and greeting each other with "nanu nanu"s and "may the Force be with you as you live long and prosper" and addressing each other as "Princess Commander Sith-Erin go Bragh Victoria Imperatrix" and "Star Lord Sir H'Alot'Of'Apostrophes'Makes'My'Name'Sound'Alien, all in a dreadful "lilting" fake-Irish RenFaire brogue. So the opportunity to hate on BoingBoing, Steampunk, and Cory Doctorow is the perfect antidote to that poison, and I thank the poster for this refreshing tonic, er, I mean, "magic potion".)
posted by orthogonality at 5:12 AM on October 3, 2008 [1 favorite]


Skull and crossbones. Skull and crossbones. No Zombies. Astro?
posted by netbros at 5:17 AM on October 3, 2008


Everytime you link to BoingBoing, God kills a pony.
posted by tommasz at 5:40 AM on October 3, 2008


Everytime you link to BoingBoing, God kills a pony.

Believe me, I struggled with it. Every time I'm about to delete their RSS feed they manage to come up with something awesome. Sadly, it seems like the frequency is extremely sparse.
posted by mattholomew at 6:29 AM on October 3, 2008


mmmm....sugar of lead...
posted by Banky_Edwards at 7:15 AM on October 3, 2008 [1 favorite]


Oh, come on now, hating on BoingBoing is so late June/early July.

Cool post, by the way.
posted by Dumsnill at 7:30 AM on October 3, 2008


What are people doing with Wii controlers anyway... In the vein of odd warnings, check out this helpful piece of advice from the people at future shop about not eating the Wii controlers. It's even funnier on the french site...
posted by theManRoom at 8:08 AM on October 3, 2008


Insectodeth! RIDE THE LIGHTNING! RRRRRRRRRAWWWK!

Sugar of Lead - priceless. Somewhere, Neil Young is penning a new song.

Great post.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 8:14 AM on October 3, 2008


Fantastic labels. Just in time for Halloween, too! Thanks.
posted by misha at 8:41 AM on October 3, 2008


It's possible that I will have to have some of these made into t-shirts; hopefully without infringing on any 1860's copyrights.
posted by Geekyblonde at 9:15 AM on October 3, 2008


This is awesome!
posted by grapefruitmoon at 9:29 AM on October 3, 2008


I quite like INSECTODETH as well.
posted by Artw at 9:42 AM on October 3, 2008


Hea-vey, sugar of lead…
Fills the insects full of dread!

posted by Artw at 9:44 AM on October 3, 2008


One of these will go great on my bottle of Crystal Head Vodka.
posted by jedicus at 9:45 AM on October 3, 2008


I have some Deadly Nightshade vines in my backyard, I may have to mark them with one of these. (Just because I like the idea of keeping with the labeled garden theme: Carrots, Squash, Potatoes, Poison...)
posted by quin at 9:56 AM on October 3, 2008


These need to be t-shirts and I need to own them.
posted by The Whelk at 10:12 AM on October 3, 2008


Ah, the days when cough syrup had booze *and* opium in it...
posted by medeine at 10:29 AM on October 3, 2008


I want to put in a comment here before the post disappears.
posted by joelf at 10:44 AM on October 3, 2008


oops. nevermind. thought this was a double. carry on. i like skulls.
posted by joelf at 10:46 AM on October 3, 2008


Sugar of lead is lead (II) acetate, which has a sweet taste. It was used by the Romans as a sweetener (cheaper than honey, I guess), but it's not clear why a 19th/early 20th Century druggist would carry it, since people clearly knew it was toxic. It's still used today in cosmetics (some hair dye and red lipstick - if your red lipstick tastes sweet, you might want to replace it with another brand!) and textile dyeing, but my best guess is that those old products were folk "remedies" of dubious efficacy.

Unfortunately we don't have any lead (II) acetate in the lab, or I'd print out some of these labels and stick them on the bottle! Fun stuff, thanks.
posted by Quietgal at 11:19 AM on October 3, 2008 [1 favorite]


I'd look at this link, but i have no way of knowing it's still there. thanks for the warning label.
posted by sexyrobot at 11:48 AM on October 3, 2008


Damn, I was just coming in to not the Romans using sugar of lead but I've been beaten to it...

I remember as kid seeing a set of drinks glasses - 'what's your poison?' - labeled: Arsenic, Cyanide etc and thinking them really cool.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 12:09 PM on October 3, 2008


I like Boing Boing and I don't care what you think of me.
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:58 PM on October 3, 2008


Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is still, IMHO, a really good SF novel, and After The Seige is outstanding. Boing Boing remains a self promotional suck-hole of ever diminishing returns.
posted by Artw at 7:52 PM on October 3, 2008


Oh, come on now, hating on BoingBoing is so late June/early July.

Since you seem to be new here, let me assure you that our relationship with our centrally-controlled web cousin is more complicated than that.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 6:04 AM on October 4, 2008


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