Those little grooves at the corner would hold your cigarette, while you sat around chatting, smoking and drinking highballs (my parents' fave was scotch and water and filtered cigarettes (maybe Pall Malls?). Those were the days, back in the 1950s when I was a little girl.

She quit smoking earlier. I smoked, too, in my late teens. UGH.

(Not bad considering his lifestyle.)

Mother quit when I was ten and she is still with us.

You could get 15 to 25 bucks for it. Mid century ashtrays are popular. People use them for candy dishes, jewelry dishes, etc.
That though, is your classic plain glass ashtray, so no, you did not hit the jackpot!

It was heavy enough to use as a boat anchor!

I'm 3 years 1 month removed from that myself

I have a large round cut glass one that I keep my scrubber pads in under the sink. I can't remember what they're called!

They were once commonplace; I wonder what happened to all of them? Maybe the same hole in the space-time continuum that sucked up the floppy disks and buttonhooks and carbon paper.

Especially the mechanism where you could backspace and correct! Brilliant!

That would be a better use than the current one.

It holds screws and bolts and nuts when I am working on some electronic doo-hicky.