What is it? CLXXIII

Very narrow and weak tips to the jaws, so it looks more like a battery terminal puller.

Hard to say though without knowing how big it is! If that thing's a foot across, it's clearly not for batteries.

Not exactly like that. Sets of many-sized through punches (parallel sided punches) are common in metal-bashing, but not blind punches. Blind punches are used in woodworking with dowels, but in sets of a standard size. I've not seen a graduated blind set before.

You don't punch leather with round needles though. Leather needles are flat or triangular, so they don't wedge shut in the hole.

I'm still not sure about number 1006, but the rest of the answers have been posted:

Rob

1002. An annoying, very poorly designed gear puller.

I am not sure what it is either but it could be used to mark the center of dowels.

I believe it may be to measure discs something like coin blanks and the holes are to push the disc out if it is a little tight. The very wide range seems unusual. Maybe a button gage?

Don Young

Serendipitously, as I've been celebrating my 50th class reunion at venues in Ogonquit, Maine and Cambridge, Massachusetts all week, it appears that someone at my alma mater are still trying to sell that wireless power transmission idea, as reported in The Boston Globe yesterday:

I don't doubt that schemes like that can work, but it's hard for me to believe that they'd be very efficient, so probably not practical for significant electrical loads.

Speaking of efficiency, yesterday SWMBO and I spent a few hours in and around the wackiest looking building I've ever seen firsthand, the new Stata building at my alma mater, funded largely by classmate, Ray Stata, and his wife:

One of the more interesting things I learned about the building is that it has no interior space heating system at all. The building has superb thermal insulation. It has A/C to cool it down when needed, but the heat from the occupant's bodies and all the electrically powered stuff inside is sufficient to keep it "warm" even in the middle of a Massachusetts' winter. Imagine that...

Jeff

And no one mentions the physiological implications of living in that kind of a magnetic field... or the results of something else being introduced into the field that accidentally resonates...

Jerry