Antiques and Collectibles: The dribble glass prank goes back to the 18th century

April Fool’s Day is recognized in most countries today, but historians don’t know where or how it began.

Remember switching sugar and salt to fool your family? Or calling the drugstore to ask if they had “Prince Albert in the can”? “Yes?” “Well, you better let him out” was the answer used by

kids on April 1. (Prince Albert was a popular tobacco brand.)

Our ancestors played jokes all year long. One famous 18th-century joke was the puzzle jug, usually found in a pub. It was a mug or pitcher with a handle, but the top half of the mug was pierced. If you drank from it, the liquid dribbled out of the holes onto your shirt.

Those “in the know” could empty the mug without spilling a drop. The mug had a rounded rim that was actually a hollow tube that led into the hollow handle and to the inside of the mug. Just suck on the spout in the rim and you could get a drink.

This type of puzzle mug is still being made to play a trick on April Fool’s Day or at a drinking party at any time.

Q: I read somewhere that some phonograph records were made of chocolate candy and could actually be played on a phonograph. Is this true?

A: Stollwerck, a German chocolate manufacturer, made chocolate disc records and a phonograph that played them. Franz Stollwerck (1815-1876) founded the company in Cologne, Germany, in 1839.

Its first products were cough drops. In 1860 the firm’s product line was expanded to include chocolate, gingerbread and marzipan. In 1903 Stollwerck made chocolate records that could play music on an 8 1/2-inch horn phonograph operated by a clock motor.

The records were 3 inches in diameter. The phonographs broke easily and their sound quality was not good, but at least the records were edible. The phonographs and records are collectible today, but not many survived.

Even advertising material related to them is hard to find. The company is still in business making chocolate. A sad note: One of Stollwerck’s sons died when a steam-operated chocolate blending machine he was working on exploded and he drowned in a vat of chocolate.

Q: I have an old postcard that has a drawing of a man carrying a grandfather clock into a pawnshop. There are three balls hanging outside the shop. Aren’t they the symbol of a pawnshop? How did that start?

A: There are several stories connected with the pawn brokers’ symbol. The three hanging balls were first used during the Middle Ages to symbolize money or wealth and may have represented coins. Most think it was a symbol used by the Medici, a wealthy family in Florence, Italy.

The Medici family, which included merchants, bankers, popes and politicians, established the Medici Bank, one of the most important financial institutions in Europe, in the 15th century. Some say that merchants in Lombard, Italy, hung balls in front of their houses.

The custom of using three balls in front of pawnshops began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe and eventually to the United States. Although the symbol is no longer common in the United States, it is still used in England.

Different symbols are used for pawnshops in Asian countries. The number 7 with a circle around it is used in Japan. A bat, the symbol for fortune, holding a coin is used in Hong Kong.

Write to Terry Kovel, (The Herald), King Features Syndicate, 300 W. 57th St., New York, NY 10019.