What is It? Game 46

This week's collaboration with What is It? Blog brings us this strange contraption: can you guess what it is? (And no, it's not a magic lamp!)

Place your guess in the comment section - you can guess as many times as you'd like but please don't post any URL (let others play). No prize this week, you're playing for fun and bragging rights!

For more clues, check out What is It? Blog!

Update 11/23/07 - the answer is:


Candle lighter, it's filled with kerosene, which is carried by the cord through the tubing to the small holes.



Congratulations to James #7 who got it right! (I have to say that felix's answer of C3PO codpiece made me chuckle!)

iv`e never seen anything like it but i think you fill ii with hot water and use it to warm up an arthritic finger joint.
but it was made in springfeild so who knows .
ask homer.
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Well, the little spiral thing is either, (a) to cool something in the contents or (b) to hold something. The flat bottom seems more indicative of something designed to be heated, rather than for stability. My guess is maybe there are two chambers inside this thing and it is a portable still of some kind, maybe to purify water?
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Older version of our modern day equivalent of a candle lighter. Protruding area can be lit to provide reach into gaslight lamps and provide ease through not having to strike many matches to light several lamps around the house.
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It may be a pot to haet liquids with a handle to take it(vertical), and other to keep it over the fire.

Or a distilling device, or part of it, working like an italian coffeepot.
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It's deceptive because it's upside-down. It's a funnel.
It looks just like one used for canning, except it has that spiral loop - possibly used for distilling or simply to attach it to a stick for a pivot.
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It's an alcohol or fuel lamp. The bottom coil has a hole for vapor to escape and when lit heats up the top coil to change the liquid fuel to a gas.
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It's an old gas/alcohol/kerosene lamp. You pump the pressure up with the thing on the left, and there are small holes on the right for lighting the gas/liquid coming out.
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It's to heat things up. You put the hot water in the hole, close the cap tightly, so the heat doesn't escape, and let the heat make its way though the coils to warm up something that is stuck in there, clothes-pin style.

Or it could be a dunce cap. Place it on the head, of the punished child (there's no bottom - it's hollow) an hang a paper from the coil, stating what the child did wrong.
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I think Onyxium has it right. The coil resembles an immersion heater, and probably extends into the chamber. The lid certainly looks like old ink pot lids, with a flat stable bottom to avoid tipping.
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Not a lamp, but a small alcohol fondue or chafing dish burner. You place alcohol inside the can, there is a wick to the coil which by the flame's heat generates pressure in the can and keeps the alcohol flowing through the small holes in the ring which perpetuates the cycle. It functions much the same as a vintage alcohol blow torch. Also similar are the new-fangled aluminum can stoves seen on many backpacking sites.
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hmm, you know in the trenches in ww1, the soldiers made things out of whatever they could find. it sort or looks like a cancle holder/snuffer made out of whatever some soldier could find.
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