Something a little different for today's collaboration with What is it? blog - it's a true "what the heck is it?" meaning we don't know what the doodad pictured above is for!
This device has been sitting on someone's mantle for years, and if you know what it is for (with proof - article, patent no. or photo of it in use), then you'll win a free shirt from Neatorama's online shop! If no one gets it right, then funniest/most creative entry will win instead.
Contest rules are simple: Enter your guess in the comment area, one guess per comment, please but you can enter as many as you can think of. We usually discourage URLs, but for this game, we actually encourage it (you'll need to link to the proof anyhow). First one to tell us what it is for wins the shirt, or if nobody does, then the funniest guess gets it. Good luck!
Update 7/6/08 - since no one gave convincing proof, the funniest guess wins it. Congrats to Fuzz, who came up with "Flux Capacitor v1.0"
i think it could be a door bell or a buzzer
if the bar in the middle pivots {looks like it might]
running an ac curent through the electrodes might make it swing and ring the bell like thingy on the top.
if the ends of the bar were wrapped in wire id say thats what it was but no wire.
hmm maybe a soleniod