What is It? Game 23.

Posted by Alex in What Is It on May 31, 2007 at 3:02 am


This week’s collaboration with What is It? Blog brings us this mysterious object (more clues at the What is It?). Can you guess what it is?

Place your guess on the comment section (please post no URL, let others play). Two Free T-Shirts as prizes: one for first correct guess, and another one for funniest/most creative guess.

Update 6/1/07: The answer is :

Book clamp, in the days before book bags, this was invented to be used for carrying books. Patent number 198,437

No one got it right, but I was tickled by #19 Awko’s guess that the device is for the “lost art of snake pressing.” Just what kind of snake were you referring to Awko? ;) So, congrats! You got the t-shirt for funniest guess.


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COMMENT

50 comments to "What is It? Game 23."

  1. Lewis
    May 31st, 2007 at 3:17 am

    I think that it is a very old nutcracker. a nut would be placed in the between the wooden boards and the handle is pulled, crushing the nut.

  2. Harley
    May 31st, 2007 at 3:20 am

    its an old day "knuckle buster" with wood extensions for more face damaging pleasure.

  3. Kevin
    May 31st, 2007 at 3:46 am

    I believe that it is a crank for tightening a rope bed.

  4. Dan
    May 31st, 2007 at 4:13 am

    some sort of press? maybe for clothes? maybe printing? hummm

  5. Paddy
    May 31st, 2007 at 4:40 am

    This Device May Have Been Used for Lifting and handling, possibly for blocks of ice!

  6. Tim Giachetti
    May 31st, 2007 at 4:56 am

    finger crunching device for torturing some poor schmuck into changing religions. Hopefully from scientology to athiesm. :P

  7. Tom
    May 31st, 2007 at 5:05 am

    I have it on bad authority that this is a device used in training by the late contortionist Harry Houdini.
    Two hours a day on this and he could escape from any tight situation.

    Personally, I disagree,
    Is this an old fashioned trouser press?

  8. DemonioFlatline
    May 31st, 2007 at 5:05 am

    I think it is something to press sheets of paper together before the pages were stiched or pasted. I seems that pressure was gained as the handle was twisted. Definitely it was used to manufacture books!

  9. Tom
    May 31st, 2007 at 5:06 am

    as opposed to a new fashioned trouser press, like an iron.

  10. Miss Cellania
    May 31st, 2007 at 5:19 am

    Obviously, an instrument of torture.

  11. kate
    May 31st, 2007 at 5:35 am

    a clothes hanger?

  12. Calahan
    May 31st, 2007 at 6:07 am

    This is an oldstyle penis enlarging kit with handles now only 2,99 ;)

    but personally i think its a device to handle and lift materials in blocka [bricks maby]

  13. shihui
    May 31st, 2007 at 6:10 am

    torture contraption? possibly to break fingerjoints or something like that. just a guess!

  14. Randall
    May 31st, 2007 at 6:38 am

    Its a curvicle. As a boy it my chore to go out to the chilling hut and curvicle the family's shoe points before Sunday church. This was quite a task before the epidemic. I had really hoped to never see one again, just looking at it makes my thumbs ache.

  15. Mark Murray
    May 31st, 2007 at 6:43 am

    I think this is a rope braider.

  16. jonno
    May 31st, 2007 at 7:08 am

    a monkey bashing device

  17. Alex F
    May 31st, 2007 at 7:08 am

    It's an antique 3-hole puncher... to punch holes for antique 3 ring binders of course!

  18. Ali S.
    May 31st, 2007 at 7:11 am

    I think it's a press of some sort...for pants perhaps?

  19. Awko
    May 31st, 2007 at 7:34 am

    It's a device used in the lost art of snake pressing. It was a common hobby back in the day but was deemed cruel and unnecessary by animal rights activists.

    In order to keep the craft going many snake pressers moved on to flower pressing which proved more successful in the long run due to not only flowers being safer to obtain but much prettier to look at.

  20. Craig
    May 31st, 2007 at 8:28 am

    I believe it is a press for towels and linen when they are to be put into a steamer trunk

  21. Jennifer
    May 31st, 2007 at 9:05 am

    Collar Press

  22. cubby96
    May 31st, 2007 at 9:16 am

    I'm afraid I was beaten to the punch. Kevin said crank for tightening a rope bed, and I agree. Remember the phrase 'sleep tight'? That's where it came from.

  23. Trey
    May 31st, 2007 at 10:16 am

    old school vice for wood working ?

  24. yomeansyo
    May 31st, 2007 at 10:28 am

    A pencil dullener?

  25. Drew
    May 31st, 2007 at 10:28 am

    You are all so stupid. It's obviously a banana press.

  26. everywordmeans
    May 31st, 2007 at 10:30 am

    Contrary to popular belief, the original Spirograph was not invented nor marketed by Hasbro co., but rather, was an invention created hundreds of years earlier for woodcuts by none other than Leonardo DaVinci. Shown in the picture above is a modern-day replica taken from his notebooks in which the carving implement used to make the woodcut is inserted into the metal wheel in the middle of the device, and by holding the frame of the object against a flat surface, a "spirographic" design was geometrically etched into the template of a piece of wood by spinning the metal wheel in various arcs, later to be duplicated by relief printing the carved image therewith onto paper.
    It is conjectured that DaVinci may have used this device to create his famous "Vitruvian Man", but that hypothesis has not been proven as of yet. However, ample circumstantial evidence via Leonardo's other sketches show that his mathematical prowess and geometric forms likely benefited greatly from having this 'prototypical spirograph' invention, and there are many proponents of this theory, in fact, a 10,000 dollar award is being offered by private investors in Italy to disprove that Leonardo used this device in his sketches. No one has claimed that prize yet.

  27. john
    May 31st, 2007 at 10:44 am

    This is a bit off topic but the Canadian version of Antiques Roadshow has a whatsit. I tried contacting Rob at the what is it blog but couldn't find an address. Maybe you folks can help? http://www.canadianantiquesroadshow.com/tv_link_mystery_item.htm#

  28. becky
    May 31st, 2007 at 10:46 am

    it's clearly a time machine.

  29. Geoff
    May 31st, 2007 at 11:05 am

    It's a clamp.

  30. Tim Giachetti
    May 31st, 2007 at 11:47 am

    ok I had to think back to an old relationship. The woman was a bibliophile (book nut). This device is used to hold the pages of a book for binding. So it's a book binder.

  31. warmworm
    May 31st, 2007 at 12:16 pm

    Oh, of course... now I see. A Daschund trap!

  32. Dsgnr1
    May 31st, 2007 at 12:32 pm

    This device is a simple clamp used by furniture makers circa 1900. The wooden rails were placed along the pieces needing clamped, and then the "dial" was wound up until one of the holes aligned with the hoop. This would hold the pieces in their place for gluing under compression.

  33. Mr ElRayes
    May 31st, 2007 at 1:40 pm

    It is, obviously, an antique Scanner. Probabbly a Dell.

    On a more serious note - Im gonna guess its an old clamp. Where when you turn the dial - the rope gets tighter and tighter pushing the two boards together. And the holes in the dial are so you can put a piece of wood, a stick of sorts, through it so that it does not unravel.

    P.S. - If im right, email me :)

  34. orion
    May 31st, 2007 at 1:41 pm

    it looks to me like an old wooden clothes hanger - for slacks.

  35. Alex
    May 31st, 2007 at 1:50 pm

    Ooh, this is a good one. One close guess (I won't tell which one, but it's in the first 10 comments), but nothing hits the mark just yet.

    And no, despite Neatorama's strange obsession with torture lately (just read the comments), it's not a torture device.

  36. dan
    May 31st, 2007 at 2:10 pm

    It looks like it would be for squeezing and clamping something together. I would guess it's some sort of tourniquet used in surgeries. Possibly for clamping the umbilical cord after a mother gives birth.

  37. Trey
    May 31st, 2007 at 2:11 pm

    its a shirt collar press !

  38. caryl
    May 31st, 2007 at 2:30 pm

    I say it's a screw driver!

  39. tara
    May 31st, 2007 at 3:05 pm

    a cheese press.

  40. Kaotix
    May 31st, 2007 at 3:18 pm

    You all know nothing, its a Banana Straighter

  41. Kevin
    May 31st, 2007 at 3:58 pm

    A cheese cutter?

  42. Oliver
    May 31st, 2007 at 4:03 pm

    An orange juice squeezer.

  43. George
    May 31st, 2007 at 4:47 pm

    A vice used in book binding.

  44. cj
    May 31st, 2007 at 6:18 pm

    isnt it a clamp

  45. CheeseDuck
    May 31st, 2007 at 7:01 pm

    A torturing device?

  46. jonno
    May 31st, 2007 at 7:49 pm

    is it an exhaust manifold perhaps?

  47. Beth
    May 31st, 2007 at 9:08 pm

    A clamp.

  48. Yih Sun
    May 31st, 2007 at 10:13 pm

    It's a device to hold your newspapers together!

  49. Shane
    May 31st, 2007 at 11:05 pm

    It is a clamp used to hold wool while it was being carded prior to spinning it into thread.

  50. yayo
    June 1st, 2007 at 4:47 pm

    I think it's for holding a recently glued book and pressing the "encuadernation" or however it's said in english ^^


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