What is it? Game 70

Hooray! It’s time for our collaboration with the What is it? blog - can you guess what this strange contraption is for?

Place your guess in the comment section - no prize this week, so you’re playing for fame and glory only. For more clues (and more guessing fun), check out the What is it? blog.

Update 7/25/08 - the answer:

A trap for taking live animals, the top and bottom both collapse, making the height just a couple of inches. It’s placed in a shallow stream, when it’s tripped the animal’s leg is caught, after the top expands the leg is released and the elevation apparatus is activated, raising the trap several inches above the water. It’s called a Gibbs Armadillo trap because of how it looks, but it was used for catching live muskrats so they could be transported to another area, patent number 1,765,144.

Congrats to SoLo who got it right first!

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July 24, 2008 at 8:00 am by Alex
Category: What Is It

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46 comments to "What is it? Game 70"

shadowfirebird
July 24th, 2008 at 8:04 am
Edwardian bicycle helmet former?
luvpumpkns
July 24th, 2008 at 8:08 am
a trap for some kind of animal. rats, perhaps?
kusito
July 24th, 2008 at 8:10 am
this is some sort of a trap! on the left hand side at the bottom is the activator.
the funny design is because its designed to fold it together for storage reasons!
tripleX
July 24th, 2008 at 8:29 am
Looks like a trap. The spring makes it go down to the right side. You fold it open to the left to get the animal out (like a hedgehog) The string keeps the animal from walking away with it.
Bret
July 24th, 2008 at 8:29 am
It’s a roof vent
Tyler
July 24th, 2008 at 8:39 am
It’s an armadillo’s back pack.
Alex
July 24th, 2008 at 9:40 am
Yes, it’s a trap - but what kind of trap?
panicronic
July 24th, 2008 at 9:54 am
Its a turn of the turn of the century live trap for beaver.
browse
July 24th, 2008 at 10:16 am
It’s the shade for a baby carriage.
chris
July 24th, 2008 at 10:28 am
I’ts a beaver trap
Sammy
July 24th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Armadillo trap!
nibiyabi
July 24th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Prairie dog trap.
AJ
July 24th, 2008 at 10:40 am
It’s a Roly Poly trap! Pill bugs, potato bugs and doodle bugs crawl over the oval rim at the bottom and flip on their backs. A den of spiders live hidden in Roly Poly-styled alcove above and simply swoop down to grab dinner.

This was a mail-order observation science toy when I was a kid. The spiders always arrived dead in the package and you had to collect new ones from around your home. The new ones never stayed put and you’d wake up at night with them crawling on you.
Cynthia
July 24th, 2008 at 10:47 am
It’s clearly a vase.
SoLo
July 24th, 2008 at 11:00 am
Yep, it’s a Gibbs Armadillo trap. Here is another image: http://northern-antlers.com/images/antiqu4.jpg

But the question remains, is it used to trap armadillos, or is it called that because it looks like an armadillo?
sise
July 24th, 2008 at 11:15 am
It’s probably called that because it totally looks like an armadillo.

Those things are freaky o.o
ellanovak
July 24th, 2008 at 11:24 am
hmmm…. shoe rack?
Thomas
July 24th, 2008 at 11:28 am
Phrenologists helmet, for feeling out cranial bumps.
laamish
July 24th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Wig-warmer.
Craig
July 24th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
I guess I just have a sick mind, because the first thing I thought was “medieval torture device”.
HaricotVert
July 24th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
http://photo.gangus.com/d/26788-2/ackbar.jpg

/obligatory
Gail Pink
July 24th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
A Home for a Slinky
anon
July 24th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Who’d want to trap an armadillo?
They ain’t good eatin’ like opossum or squirrel
Zorah
July 24th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
This is an automatic electric wig warmer designed by Thomas Edison. In those days, it was considered a luxury to be able to put a nice warm wig on your head before heading out in the cold.
btown
July 24th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
porcupine deporker
SoLo
July 24th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
@ anon- heh, true said there… when it’s road-kill though, we call it possum on a half-shell
Jaxx
July 24th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Chastity device for male horses.
Eibmoz
July 24th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
A hat stretcher?
SenorMysterioso
July 24th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
dead, biomechanical rolly polly
SoLo
July 24th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
OK, got word back from the kind folks at northern-antlers.com. Here’s what they wrote:

“Its called that because It looks like an Armadillo, It was actually used to catch muskrats alive. It was only made between 1925-1930 by the Gibbs Trap Co., they are bulky and It was not realistic to try and carry a dozen of them Into the marsh. Today they are a must have for collectors and are highly prized In any collection. The term “armadillo” Is slang and caught on In the later years by collectors, It was manufactured and sold as the ‘Gibbs live muskrat trap.’”
Ali S.
July 24th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Armadillo trap?
seekshelter
July 24th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
once…one of those arrived at my village and stole away some of my family and sold them to slave traders….
Lionheart
July 24th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Ladies trap?
Abbey
July 24th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Roly Poly Robot.
Cori
July 24th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Steampunk hairnet.
DOJ
July 24th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
it’s Matt LeBlanc’s mask from the movie “Lost in Space”
diggedy
July 24th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
This is a Sootball helmet to protect the chimney-sweeps who were the primary players of Sootball. Note the mouthgard, nose-picker and vents for breathability.
Miss Cellania
July 24th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Oh! I know! It’s an instrument of torture!
Some Canadian Skeptic
July 24th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
Looks like an oven to me, to be placed next to a fireplace
stormie24
July 25th, 2008 at 12:50 am
looks like an old radiator.
Randalll
July 25th, 2008 at 6:54 am
Its a Schlemer-Vorstein submersable torpedo degausser. Or in the original nomenclature: Einem SchlemerVorsteingUntenseeTorpedischungaussermachensteinbessenessenvor1 1/17. This device was carried on WW1 U boats to prevent torpedos from becomming magnetically charged, thus disrupting their primitive clockwork guidance systems, causing them to ‘fly’ from water and explode harmlessly in the stratosphere. Expensive to manufacture, difficult to maintain, and of no practical use, the lack of strategic materials and manpower due to these devices implementation possibly caused Imperial Germanys defeat in the great War.
Raul Bermudez
July 25th, 2008 at 9:10 am
I have read the previous comments, so I now know that it is not the case, but my first impression was that it was something uses to de-sperm armadillos.
fruity ana
July 25th, 2008 at 11:40 am
It’s a fold-out basket that attaches to a bike???
Moon
July 25th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Randalll, no,it isn’t.
MARK JONES
August 10th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
IS IS A GIBBS LIVE MUSKRAT TRAP!!THE TOP PART WAS PUSHED OVER AND IT LOCKED…THEN YOU MASH IT DOWN FLAT…THE MUSKRAT WOULD SWIM UP ON IT..THE SLINKY PART WOULD CLOSE OVER HIM THEN IT WOULD RAISE ITSELF OUT OF THE WATER ABOUT 3 INCHES SO THE MUSKRAT WOULD NOT DROWN….USED FOR RELOCATING MUSKRATS…QUITE RARE AND VALUABLE!!!MARK
Jarod D.
August 14th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Its a very rare trap which I have been looking for my collection. If its yours and you want to sell it send me an e-mail.

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