The Arents (sp?) Coll at the New York Public Library is dedicated to
collecting books about tobacco, its history, lore, science, and material
culture, etc.  I'm certain that they will be able to help anyone looking
into ashtrays.

An aside:

As a graduate student in art history many years ago, a group of like-minded
young art historians were thinking of publishing a paper that proposed a
reconstruction of the colossal statue of the female goddess that adorned
the harbor area of the former metropolitan citadel of nyork.  Based upon
shards of miniature home altars known as "ashtrays" and upon remnants of an
inscription, we were almost certain that this Ms. Libertie (as she was
called) was a female earth goddess to whom was sacrificed the souls of the
"tired, poor, retched refuse and temp[erature?] tossed," meaning those that
could not pass the barrier of the infamous so-called "Hell's Kitchen."  As
proof, we offered reconstructions of the above-mentioned "libertie trays"
and miniature souvenir models in terra-cotta and bronze paste onto which
were originally affixed a device for recording levels of heat.  Perhaps the
ritual slaying of the "retched refuse" may have been a kind of trial by
fire, for the heat-gauge seemed to determine justice by the height of the
marker.  At least, this is what we made of the term which we translated as
"degree of fair[ness] in height" that was found on some examples.
Prefigurations included an oversize female goddess that adorned an unknown
sacred shrine in the Peloponese and a colossal male figure said to guard
the harbor of roads[?] in ancient times.
______________________________________

Robert A. Baron
Museum Computer Consultant
P.O. Box 93, Larchmont, NY 10538
[log in to unmask]