This is a rerun from last spring. Although there were several close answers, no one got it quite right. Want to try again?
Size: 30"
What do you think?
Last week's Mystery Antique.
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Comments
It looks like giant tweezers!
Is it some sort of press? I am terrible at guessing, but I keep on trying…
Clueless…I am clueless…
Is it a boot-remover? It holds the boot while you struggle to get your foot out?
something to do with spinning wheel, combing wool?
Is it a boot jack?
circumsition tool for elephants ????????
Ouch…..
I’m prob wrong but only thing I can think of is a stretcher for fresh hides to dry on, like beaver etc.
I think it is a “Foot Vice” Pressure applied and released by the operators foot. leaving both hands free for planing or shaping wooden items
either handles to a wheelbarrow or part of a harness for a horse or other type of animal to pull a waqgon or plow.
A chicken guillotine: The “tongs” at the top hold the chicken’s neck in the space directly below. Then the rod sticking out at the right is depressed, pushing the sharpened arrow up through the bird’s neck, instantly killing it and severing the head.
Well, I think it’s no gross than Alistair’s guess, and a lot more humane than the method my step-grandmother used when I was a kid.
When I described to my husband over the phone, he guessed it to be an old Rare Antique Wooden Post Bench Vise Blacksmith Tool. (He is a master carpenter and knows his tools!)
… or maybe a Harness Vise Stretcher…..
Boot scrapper.
Sheesh. It’s obviously a chicken stretcher. In the old days you didn’t have turducken like you have today. Then you had to stretch your chicken so you could get the turkey inside that. No cook worth her salt would take the easy way out and simply grease up a chicken and slide it inside a turkey. I won’t even go into what you did with the duck.
james
Well, my first thought was some sort of boot stretcher thing, but after reading the comments, the mention of a lopper made me look again. Hmmm, how about an antique saw?
Amy
Looks like a stanchion to control an animal. I hope the ax like thing isn’t to cut its head off.
How about a cigar cutter?
I think Doris is on to something.
Looks as though it could be a device to help pull off a very tight pair of boots. Certainly a clamp of some sort.
Last i heard someone say it might be a device to hold ones head, when they are not treating others with love and kindness. ha! ha! Like a spouse or relative. Five minutes only or as needed.
I am maybe real silly here, but, Is this an old clock of some sort?
A clock…I showed this to my husband, and he thought the samed thing! My guess is the typical medievel torture device.
Looks like some kind of mechanical splitter, but I can’t figure out what it would split! Looks too flimsy to cut much and the pedal or blade do not travel too far of a stroke.
Is it some type of vise for holding things while you worked on them?
could it be a part of a exterior lighting devise? like a lamp?
or it fell of the turnip truck and lost part of it.?
Interesting in any case.
I’m dying to find out.
I looked at it once moore.
I’m Swiss and I just remeber I seen something simular in Switzerland used as a door bell/knocker of some sort.
Could also be a door/gate opening device.
Hi Barbara
I read every article. I enjoy it very much
I have a Mistery item this kind of item had
been used for over 200 yrs.
as late as 1950
I would like to send it to you
let me know if you are interested.
PS I also like to sell it.
Sincerely Sabrina Dreier
I think it is upside down. the little piece of wood looks like your suppose to push down like a guilotine. chopping tool????
My grandparents had a similar device that was used to strip sugar cane. Is this a bark stripper? Also, this is my first time visiting this portion of your newsletter. Wish I’d taken the time sooner, love it!!!
It’s what I would call a broom for getting ashes out of the fire place.
A boot dryer
I think I may finally have it. Pushing down on the metal bar will force the jaws further apart (note the hinge in the right-hand wooden upright where the two pieces join). I think this is a harness maker’s vise, used when stitching heavy pieces of leather together. Opening the jaws allowed the harness maker to move the leather onto the next section.
It looks like a giant wrench or mini head chopper. I can’t wait to see what it really is.
Walnut crusher??
Some sort of nut cracker?
Have not read all of the other comments so this may be a duplicate but it certainly looks like a contraption to hold an animal in place while shearing them..probably for sheep or even hold another animal in place to groom or bathe them…
Hmmmm. I think I saw this before when I was boy on the farm in late 1950’s. It has to be hay/wheat/oat cutter.
I think it’s a scale.
I think it’s an old wooden scale. Happy Thanksgiving and thanks for the fun mystery item for WW.
Some sort of spreader or vice grips after reading through these forceps for cattle delivery comes to mind.
I think it has something to do with saddles or leatherwork. But the chicken head cutter-offer-thing is unique. How or where do we find the answer???
Boot dryer/warmer
To Hold baseball to sew
This is part of a harness stretcher. here would have been a bench that it was attached to with a “foot pedal” to help work it.