What is it? CCXIII

1185 Flower holder for a hearse or carriage.

1186 Clock key.

No. 1187 - A tobacco chewing trumpet player's spitoon?

Bill : )

Let's see here...

1185 -- fishpole holder for a fishing boat? It could be lots of things; it may be helpful to see the other end of the large tube part and the mounting brackets a little more closely if there's anything unordinary about them.

1186 -- Maybe a winding key for some clockwork mechanism?

1187 -- This is an atomizer/sprayer; blowing or pumping air through the tube on the top (from the funnel end to the pointy end) will cause whatever liquid is in the lower part to be sucked up the tube there and sprayed in a fine mist. I've no positive idea what liquid would be sprayed with this particular unit; perhaps sizing when doing guilding? The funnel end of the blow tube looks rather like it's meant to be mouth blown, which (combined with the lack of any heat-resistant handle) suggests the contents didn't need to be heated.

1188 -- Tool for manipulating/replacing shoe heels, maybe?

1189 -- This is a hand adz of some species. It looks insufficiently curved in cutting profile to be a gutter adz (and I'd expect a bit longer handle), and too much so for most coopering work, so I'm guessing it may be used to hollow out the seats of wooden chairs or some similar work.

1190 -- This may have been used by the original native peoples of the area to sharpen stone cutting implements.

Now to read other guesses...

1186 Launch key for the UK's nuclear missiles.

Phil (

)

1187: Alcohol blowpipe (small blowtorch) -- needs a wick.

Northe

Nah we lost that one ages ago. This is the one they wind up George Bush's clockwork brain with. The hole is for the string that goes round his neck to keep it safe.

1186 looks like an emergency light switch test key; not sure if they're used outside of the UK but they're common here. Martin

O.K. Posting from Rec.crafts.metalworking as usual. And slrn keeps tweaking me about setting the cross-posting back to only one newsgroup -- but I'm not sure *which* would be the best newsgroup, so I fight the newsreader and keep it fully cross-posted. :-)

1185) Hmm ... two^H^H^Hthree possibilities come to my mind: 1) mount for a flag on the side of a house. 2) holder for flowers against a wall. 3) Buggy-whip holder.

And now I think that (3) is the right choice.

1186) Some sort of low-security key which opens an access plate and lifts it clear. Not very heavy. Certainly nothing as heavy as a manhole cover.

1187) This looks to be a vessel for generating steam (given what appear to be the letters 'O' and 'L' on the lid (open and lock), which suggests that it is intended to take pressure. I suspect that a pressure relief valve -- and perhaps a steam line as well) went in the now empty hole.

The skinny upright behind the small end of the horn appears to be fashioned to blow a stream of steam across the open end of the horn -- making it into a whistle. Perhaps we could think of this as a whistling teakettle on steroids -- except that there appears to be no place to pour the hot water out, and no insulated grip to allow lifting it without burning your hand.

But -- the discoloration of the bottom does suggest that it has been exposed to flames many times.

I guess that it could have been fed compressed air or steam through whatever was in the hole, and served as horn, perhaps on a railroad train?

1188) This looks like a rather nice jar lid remover -- for a fairly narrow range of lid sizes.

1189) A rather specialized hammer and shovel -- perhaps for archaeology?

1190) I think that this was a counterweight for something like lifting a bucket of water from a well or a stream. The bucket is on one end of a pole, the counterweight on the other end, with the two spaced from the pivot point perhaps so a half-full bucket of water is balanced by the counterweight. This would reduce the effort needed to lift the bucket and swing the pole to dump it where it is needed.

Now to see what others have guessed -- or truly identified.

Enjoy, DoN.

1185. i read someone else's answer and now my mind is polluted, i can't think of anything else but a flower holder for a horse drawn hearse. 1186. could it be for a wind up toy? 1187. i thought a mouth actuated atomizer, spraying some kind of paint. maybe water based paint hence they made it out of copper? kinda funny, if i designed it would've made it tall and thin instead of wide and flat, but maybe they did it that way to keep it from tipping over? 1188. nope, no clue. i see DoN guessed removing jar lids, how about crimping ON some sort of specialized lid? wondering if the hole in the middle is more than just a lightening hole but supposed to clear a protrusion from a specialized lid? 1189. i feel like i should be able to guess what this thing is for but can't. has a wimpy looking handle. either not original or whatever it did didn't require a lot of force. maybe it was designed to be struck with another hammer? the handle is just to guide it? 1190. this is the reason i'm responding this week. my first thought was "hoax". (to me "..uncle unearthed it in a cornfield in the 50's..." implies it's ancient) to me the work marks on the stone look too new for it to be an ancient object. and i thought if it was created by ancient artisans it would've been much more finely crafted. but i've been wrong before, and i don't mean to insult or imply the person who submitted it is dishonest. maybe i'm just plain wrong. also, it looks to me like a steel tool would've had to be used to make it, would have to be modern.

1188 is a set of pliers to remove radiator caps.

Most have been answered correctly this week, still don't know about the stone but I've included a few more photos of it on the answer page, two of which include "images" scratched onto it, one resembling a lightning bolt, the other a stick figure.

Rob