What is it? Set 427

If you find any sources showing medicine balls being sewed on wooden forms, I'd be happy to look at them. Here's one from the 1950s:

then, they weren't perfectly round. It seems to me it would have been much easier to sew without a form, especially if one used a sewing machine.

Balloons became available about 1889, for 4¢ apiece, which would be $1 nowadays. Before that, what would they have used except wooden forms? Even after balloons were available, making dozens of pinatas for annual festivals would have been cheaper with wooden forms, and the wooden form would have made it easier to cut the pinata open to fill with candy.

You make some good points, I've been searching for pinata forms and medicine ball forms and have had the same luck with both, I'll let everyone know if find anything. Wouldn't surprise me if it turned out to be for a totally different purpose.

I would bet that the wooden form is for sand molding the rough shape for a valve cavity. One of the local outfits uses nice aluminum ones now but wood is a LOT lighter and easier to work with for the previous generation.

Have you spelled it right in your searches? It really should be "piñata", which can be difficult to generate depending on your keyboard and computer OS, and in case it is not properly displayed on your computer, it is an 'n' with a '~' above it. Not sure how forgiving the search engines are about that.

Good luck, DoN.

Thanks, DoN.

page say Mexicans still use wooden forms to make table displays, wall displays, clowns, and angels. They mold the paper mache around the form, then cut the paper mache in two.

This page says wooden forms for paper mache are called takaan.

This page says molding paper mache toys on wooden forms became very popular after American newspapers became available and declined when plastic toys arrived.