How to identify exotic chemistry glassware?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I recently took a job teaching chemistry at a small university, and I’m going through some boxes of stuff in my lab to decide what’s worth keeping. There are several pieces of custom-made, fancypants glassware that are quite old (1950s) and whose purpose mystifies me. It’s not the sort of thing in a normal catalog of chemical glassware, and Googling “chemistry glassware” or something similar just brings up the usual parade of flasks and beakers.

To give you an idea of their size & complexity, I’ve already identified some glass mercury-diffusion pumps (an old-school way of creating a vacuum) like this one, thankfully devoid of mercury. I’m pretty sure my unidentified pieces are also meant for low-pressure work.

The glassware predates the jobs of anyone in the department, including the retiring prof I’m replacing. Nobody has any idea what some of it’s for, but I think they’re too pretty and possibly useful/valuable to toss in the trash. How can I use my internet skills to identify these pieces?

2

maybe find some old fart scientific glassblower that might identify some. they make stuff for all the chemistry fields.

very good on wanting to save the stuff. if it can’t be used then it might be displayed in hallway display cases in the chemistry department.

3

The glassblower’s a good idea! There’s a larger university not too far away who employs a glassblower, so I’ll check with him.

4

Could they have been built there at the lab? Glassblowers have been doing student chemistry stuff forever.

5

I don’t think they were made at our lab --it’s a small university, and I don’t think our department has ever had a glassblower. These pieces are intricate enough that I think they required professional skill. Plus, a couple of items have the name of a manufacturer – Delmar – which made glassware ihere in Illinois at least from the 1950s to 70s, though I think they’ve been gone a long time. I can’t find a catalog of theirs online, which would answer a lot of my questions!