Can You Identify These Mystery Items? (Museum Objects; Devices; etc.)

[kamalktk]

What happens when scientists retire without labeling their stuff.

https://www.nist.gov/blogs/taking-measure/unidentified-museum-objects-v

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In celebration of National Inventors Month 2019 (yes, it’s a thing) we’re highlighting some curious inventions currently cooling their heels in the NIST museum’s basement storage area. These innovations, created some decades ago, have been safely preserved and protected by the stalwart staff of the NIST museum. Trouble is, we’re not entirely sure why these particular inventions were… invented.

Welcome back to Unidentified Museum Objects, our sporadically recurring series that gives you, our readers, a chance to sound off on what you think this stuff might be.

 

[pandacracker]

I certainly can't

https://www.theguardian.com/science...y-objects-from-the-science-museum-in-pictures

 

[Spookdaddy]

The first picture, which is labelled as a 'jigsaw' further down the article, is not a jigsaw.

It's very recognisably - to anyone who works in a carpentry workshop - a scroll saw. And looks pretty much like a modern one in basic detail.

 

[Analogue Boy]

This looks like a melon baller.

 

[Min Bannister]

This looks like a melon baller.

It does but since it was from Sir Henry Wellcome's collection it is probably medical and so it may not have been melons they were balling.

 

[ravensocks]

It does but since it was from Sir Henry Wellcome's collection it is probably medical and so it may not have been melons they were balling.

Scooping out eyeballs! Ewwww

 

[Analogue Boy]

Everything on that page is for getting stones out of horse’s hooves.

 

[Frideswide]

where does it give a scale?

 

[ChasFink]

where does it give a scale?

I don't think any of the objects is a scale, although you could probably hang two trays on a beam on this one and use it as a scale.

 

[gordonrutter]

I don't think any of the objects is a scale, although you could probably hang two trays on a beam on this one and use it as a scale.

View attachment 28227

They look like gas taps at the top sticking down.

 

[Analogue Boy]

It does look like a Bunsen Burner. (Sorry I can’t come up with a witty retort).

 

[Mythopoeika]

The first picture, which is labelled as a 'jigsaw' further down the article, is not a jigsaw.

It's very recognisably - to anyone who works in a carpentry workshop - a scroll saw. And looks pretty much like a modern one in basic detail.

I have one that has a similar construction, although it dates from the 80s.

 

[Mythopoeika]

It does look like a Bunsen Burner. (Sorry I can’t come up with a witty retort).

I think it's a gas distributor for a pair of Bunsen burners.

 

[Mythopoeika]

The brass 'club' in number 2 may be a carpet laying tool.

 

[cycleboy2]

I have one that has a similar construction, although it dates from the 80s.

Here's one on eBay for £200 - even made by Hobbies. Not that tricky to identify...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/i/2646618543...MInqWUkPLe6gIVSrTVCh1xrQFtEAQYAiABEgL1V_D_BwE

 

[escargot]

Hopeless without some idea of scale.

 

[escargot]

There's also this, the Roman dodecahedron

(youTube link)

Over 100 of these artefacts have been found across Northern Europe and, dating from around 200 AD, people must have been using them for something useful for there to have been so many made. I wanted to see what they might have been used for so I got one made with a 3D printer and, well watch to see what they can do

They can be used for knitting seamless fingers in all sizes for gloves.

Another demonstration.

I'm convinced.

 

[Mythopoeika]

There's also this, the Roman dodecahedron

(youTube link)



They can be used for knitting seamless fingers in all sizes for gloves.

Another demonstration.

I'm convinced.

Genius! Yes - it's a knitting tool.

 

[Spookdaddy]

The brass 'club' in number 2 may be a carpet laying tool.

Some kind of bolster was one of the things I first thought of - but it looks much too thick for a carpet fitter's, and I'm not sure how common fitted carpets were at the time this looks like it might have been made, or if they even existed in the way we think of them at all. Also, wouldn't a copper alloy be softer and more expensive than iron - and therefore a bit of an odd choice for a bolster, at least for most of the purposes I can think of?

I did wonder if it might be something designed to imprint shaped recesses in soft material (say mortar, before it's gone off) for the later application of wedge shaped pegs or fixings of some sort.

Thing is, with something like this, you're really on a hiding to nothing. In the days when people needed a thingy to do something a bit out of the ordinary, they went to someone who made it for them - or maybe even made it themselves. This could mean that, if several different people asked for something to perform the identical task, then, depending on how they'd each individually worked out how it would perform that task, you might end up with dozens of unique objects all designed for the same purpose.

(I've got a lot of my grandad's old tools, made himself when he was a blacksmith with the Royal Engineers; if you needed it, and it wasn't something you could get from stores, then you made it - some of the ring spanners look like they're for doing up nuts on battleships! And there's a last he made for mending my mum's shoes when she was a toddler - very cute!)

 

[escargot]

And there's a last he made for mending my mum's shoes when she was a toddler - very cute!)

Both my parents' families had a last and the tools for mending shoes.

They'd send a child to the cobbler for a penny piece o'leather to patch with. I don't think the colour was specified!

What poverty they put up with.

 

[uair01]

Dutch museum discovers that two paintings are actually one painting.
https://nos.nl/artikel/2504895-twee...dag-collectie-blijken-eigenlijk-een-kunstwerk

 

[Frideswide]

They can be used for knitting seamless fingers in all sizes for gloves.

a roman knitting nancy!

 

[Fluttermoth]

There's also this, the Roman dodecahedron

(youTube link)



They can be used for knitting seamless fingers in all sizes for gloves.

Another demonstration.

I'm convinced.

Genius! Yes - it's a knitting tool.

Can I just say, as a lifelong knitter, crocheter and having a general interest in all historical yarn/textiles, I'm not convinced.

They obviously can be used for it, but I'm not at all convinced it's what they were meant for; the proportions on most of them are all wrong for that kind of knitting; the holes are often too small and there's not enough pegs to give a decent number of stitches per inch, and there's no evidence that I know of that Romans knitted at all, knitting is actually a very, very recent method. They also look really cumbersome and uncomfortable to use.

 

[Floyd]

They look like gas taps at the top sticking down.

I think it's a gas distributor for a pair of Bunsen burners.

The 'ridges' on the two taps (red) are certainly for a rubber hose to be pushed onto- (maybe with an added circlip to seal it fully).
Is the device (green) some sort of pressure measurement that moves up and down depending?

 

[Stormkhan]

Hmmm.
What with the two, independent hose links with their own taps, I'm wondering if it's a form of oxyacetylene burner. A small one, with the 'hook' being the horizontal jet.
The other part might be a stand for samples of materials to be exposed to high intensity heat.