You probably won't find a lot of "antique" home Brew equipment since in the early days of homebrewing (prohibition to the 70's) it was really rudimentary...A pot to boil in and a ceramic pot with a dishrag on top (sometimes) during fermentation....and maybe a few carboys....Since that era of beermaking was mixing hopped blueribbon malt extract with water, and a couple pounds of table sugar and cakes of dry yeast. (Prohibition Pilsners was what it was called.)
There were probably more people doing that style than there were people using mashtuns and doing what we'd call all grain brewing today. It wasn't til the late 60's that guys like Papazian were getting serious and trying to improve the hobby beyond those horrid early homebrews...and then after 78 when it was legalized that people got serious and started "gizmoizing" the hobby...
But...If you goolged early dilstillation or moonshine, you may actually find pictures of homebrewing equipment that people inccorectly identified as stills, since as you probably know, a lot of people still don't know the difference between beer making and moonshining (if you've seen the youtube video of the cops episode where they bust a homebrewer who was also growing pot, the arresting officer can't even tell the difference between a wortchiller and keggle and a still.) SO you may find some vintage pics that way..
Speaking of youtube, here's a video of a guy recreating beermaking in the 1700's, at a historical recreation site in NJ...
[YOUTUBE]mAU4bhjCB08[/YOUTUBE]
If you find cool picts post them, I'm really interested in the history of the hobby, so I'm looking for the same thing.
:rockin:
