What Is It? Game 120

it’s a gumball game.

the original “wheel of fortune”

Its a gambling wheel. Bets are placed on which number it will land on. which is also the prize, although on this particular one it looks like only 2 and 3 pay out.

ITS A SPINNING WHEEL FOR SOME GAME OF CHANCE. EARLY CASINO MAYBE

It is a “base decider” for those prudish young ladies who are unsure how far they should go, suring a date with a boy.

@John the Third

hahahahah!
+1 internets to you, good sir.

Old fashion protractor

It is a time machine. Invented by the mysterious Dr. Howe, based on ancient Hamurabian texts found in Himalayn Crypt under a sheet of ice a mile thick, this is the only working time machine in existence.

It only works for future travel though and only one minute at a time. Dr. Howe sold the device to incredulous investors in 1889, and then dissapeared. He is rumored to be arriving in Uraguy in 2014.

It’s the world’s worst clock.

Miss C is partly correct; it’s a navigational instrument of torture.

It’s a lunchtime clock. Mostly it’s lunchtime and just occasionally you might stumble onto a three o’clock but it’s only a passing thing and lunchtime will be back again soon.

Perhaps it is some kind of carnival game type wheel, missing the hand. Spin the wheel and a 1 gets you the basic prize, 2 a superior prize, or 3 the top prize. The odds are slim, and if the bottom prize is adequately less than the cost of a ticket (and the other prizes not overly extravagant compared to their relative probability of winning) you have a positive economic outcome over time for the operator.

It’s a fun game for the stuttering dyslexic in all of us!

It is an external memory drive from Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine of 1847. The series of digits on the disc reflects the difficulties he was having with the concept of binary numbers.

It’s a misprinted binary clock.

Even a broken binary clock is right 01 times a day.

It’s part of the ship’s helm.

i think its a binary abacus or calculator

It’s a roulette wheel devised by someone who doesn’t understand probability. “Come on, lucky number 3!”

Early prototype of the Flux Capacitor?

Its an old-fashioned calorie-counter for anorexics

It’s a Flux Capacitor. It requires 1.21 gigawatts of electrical power to operate.

It seems as if Bartholomew Diaz attempted to design a compass which the engineer mistook for a clock, or was watching Wheel of Fortune at the time. Sadly, the truth will never be known, the engineer died soon thereafter after he drove his vessel off the edge of the world.

Its a medieval roulette wheel. The peasants could only count to 3.

Wheel Machines were introduced in the 1890′s. The basic concept was akin to a carnival wheel. A coin was inserted and the wheel turned. Where it landed etermined the payout. initially these were rather plain machines in wooden cabinets with non descript
wheels. On insertion of a coin the wheels turned and the payout was determined by the number on the wheel that landed at the arrow/area.

It’s a trade stimulator. I’m betting that there’s a coin slot that would spin the wheel, or else an operator would spin it if you give them your money. One would get a number of cigars based on what number the wheel stopped on. A nickel could win you one ‘nickel’ cigar (probably worth 3 cents), or you could win two or three, more than your money’s worth. This one’s probably from the 1890s or very early 1900′s.

They were used in places where gambling wasn’t legal. These games would offer an opportunity to win prizes instead of (or in addition to) money. Sometimes the prizes would be exchangable for cash, like ‘Free replays’ on pinball machines in the 60′s that could be traded for money with an operator. Other times there would be a product like a gumball vended, so the operator could claim it as an honest vending machine. Inside, the gumball was hollowed out with a little slip of paper. You would compare the number on the paper with a chart, if it matched a certain number you’d win a prize.

I think Cubby96 is right. Here in Argentina, there was a cookie (some kind of thin hard waffer that’s rolled while still hot to make ice cream cones) called “barquillo” that was sold in the beach by traveling salesman. Those guys carried a cylinder with the “barquillos” and the top was a roulette with numbers from 1 to 3, about the same distribution as the one in the picture. You paid the prize of one “barquillo” for a chance to roll the roulette and you got as many “barquillos” as the winning number. This one looks the same. You spin the roulette and try to insert your coin into the highest number slot and you get as many whatevers as the number you hit. Below the roulette there’s another slot that you open to get the coins.