What Is It? game 202



Once again, it's time for our collaboration with the always fascinating What Is It? Blog. Do you know what the pictured item is? Or can you make an amusing wild guess?

Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you'd like. Post no URLs or weblinks, as doing so will forfeit your entry. Two winners: the first correct guess and the funniest (albeit ultimately wrong) guess will win T-shirt from the NeatoShop.

Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize, okay? May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?

See another picture of this item at the What Is It? Blog.

Update: the mystery object is an inkwell. Congratulations to Anker, who had the correct answer right off. The funny answer award goes to Straight_Flush, who declared this to be a small hadron collider! Both win t-shirts from the NeatoShop. We had a lot of imaginative answers this week, some x-rated, so you should go read them all!

I guess it is an „inkstand“ with a rotatable glass „snail inkwell“ and a pen racks

„If You're Not Part of the Solution,...“ Ladie’s Fit S in Ash Grey
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As an anthropologist, I have no idea, so I'm guessing it's either intended to be purely decorative, or it's a religious object.
Schroedinger's cat wanted dead/alive, medium
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Lost in the bowels of the Tower of London for centuries and only recently rediscovered, this is the nightstand container used by Henry VIII to keep the royal toenail clippings.

Brainier than the Average Bear, 2XL.
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It's a Persistence of Memory Baby Carriage for an unfinished istallation by Salvador Dali. Melting baby carriages with square wheels as a symbol of decline and death was too weird, even for him, so he whipped out a painting of melting clocks instead.
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OOPS: This is not the life I ordered, Men's Small

It's a Persistence of Memory Baby Carriage for an unfinished istallation by Salvador Dali. Melting baby carriages with square wheels as a symbol of decline and death was too weird, even for him, so he whipped out a painting of melting clocks instead.
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A decanter for wine or some such liquid -- something with residue or lees in it that you're hoping will be trapped in those bulges as you sloooooooooowly tip the bottle part forward.

Schroedinger's cat wanted dead/alive, large
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This is a rare part of a hamster habitat circa 1800's you can tell by the period's obsession with metal parts. This part could double as a hamster wheel or a carrier. Unfortunately when attached to the rest of the habitat the hamster would often be decapitated on the metal parts trying to escape to the other areas. This led to the pumpkin shortage of 1820 where decapitated rodents said they had had enough and went on rampage stealing every baby pumpkin they could find, carved them, mounted pigeons and attacked entire cities a la Hitchcock. When plastic became popular little girls everywhere switched habitats to avoid any more misunderstandings with hamsters who up to this point had believed that their enclosures were execution style prisons.

I want to believe, Black, Large T-Shirt
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During the 14-15 centuries, this little item was of vital importance to Medieval knights at tournaments. Wearing the plate armor of the day was a complicated proposal and knights needed a squire to assist in strapping the padded arming doublet and armor pieces in place. And once buttoned up inside the armor, a quick unzipping to answer the call of nature was out of the question.
This problem was solved in the 1377 tournament season by a French nobleman, Guy DePissoir. He invented what was commonly known as the "friend of the kinght" or "Le ami de cavalier." The top bracket clipped onto the bottom of the Fauld (the plates covering the groin at the bottom of the Cuirasse or breastplate).
Notice the four settings: this made the device adjustable so it fit everyone from little "Prince John" all the way up to Henry size VIII. For ease of use the glass container, or monkey, swiveled in the frame allowing the squire to assist his knight in "Draining ye Monkye."

A Day Without Nuclear Fusion 2XL
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It's an old hermit crab catcher you put it in the sand and wait for the hermit crab to come in, once you capture it you swivel it back into place until you get home and remove it from the metal casing. It also doubles as an educational tool as it allows children to see the way hermit crabs look outside of the shell.

Support Cloning, Chocolate Large Tshirt
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It is an old kitchen container, for cereals or spices like salt. You place it in a corner and swivel it down to get the stuff out. That's why the nosle end is shaped like that when you swivel it down it pours downward. It swivels back so rodents can't get into it, although I think it should have something to close it shut like a piece of rubber.

Vampire Poser, Black large Tshirt
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It's one of the very first office warfare toys. It was quietly withdrawn from the market after the Buffalo Paper Company Explosion of 1889.

Schrodinger's Cat Dead or Alive/XXL
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This is a combination ink well and pen holder. You would tip the glass towards you and dip the pen into the ink that was stored in the rounded part of the glass. Pens were stored horizontally on the top of the metal frame.
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An old port-o-potty for men. Men would bring these with them to their neighborhood pub. This is especially used after a long week of work as they plan on sitting at the bar for long periods of time. One reason being so they do not have to constantly get up to go to the bathroom and the other reason is so not to lose their seat at the bar.

Small
Love-Lifts-All-Things
White
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I think it is a sacred water purifier from Hawaii or Australia. They would use it to distill their holy water for worship, though I have no data to prove this.
here's hoping
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From the 1698 Book of Prayer and Faith found in the chapel of the Plymouth Colony:

"Verily when thou shalt assemble on the fortnight, thou shalt collectest the menfolk and thy fairer womenfolk, seperating them thus to the left and to the right, and upon the table nearest thy altar unto the Lord, thou shalt place the receptacle. And thou shalt betwirl it thusly about and about until its contents being so thoroughly mixed that thy canst be considered to cheat or thwart that of gracious and noble performance. And thou shalt reacheth within thy receptacle and withdraw from within one of several numbered and lettered orbs, and thus shall you calleth the number and letter upon the orb that thy flock mayest marketh it upon their cartes in hopes to assemble thereof a line thus vertical or thus horizontal or thus upon the saltire.

When thou hast achieved a line of five, notwithstanding the section thou mayest mark at no tariff in the center, thou shalt call out the word 'Bingo!' and find thyself verily in winnance of the prize for the evening, be it a new broom of wicker or a gear upon which you may place your whetstone."

I Heart 8 Bit Games
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It's a skunk-striper, of course. Put white paint in the bottle and spin it on its axis above a beaver or cat to give them the look of an attractive female skunk.
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It's a skunk-striper, of course. Put white paint in the bottle and spin it on its axis above a beaver or cat to give them the look of an attractive female skunk.

More awesome than a double rainbow, Men's small
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Back in the old days they really liked big shells because people thought you could hear the ocean through them, so when they made a fake one and they had the same noise they quickly put it in a contraption so that the mouth was covered up less the ocean escape and you never hear the ocean out of it again. Of course they never stopped to think how the ocean packed itself in a tiny little shell to begin with.

Vampire Poser Black large tshirt
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This is what old breast pumps used to look like. Back in those days they were much more complicated, and probably painful...The shell part came off and you would attach the bottle, or if it was not for immediate use you could swivel it back so that it didn't spill.
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In days of yore, these devices were bolted to the wall in front of almost every barber's chair.
Before the question "Something for the weekend, Sir?", when a prophylactic was something to be only dreamed of, these devices were used to "drain the gentleman of his desires".
Its use was quite simple, as explained in the following extract from the instructions.
"Taking a lighted taper of sufficient length for the gentleman, drop same within the glass catcher while well aflame. Immediately, with all haste, the gentleman's member should be placed wholly within the entrance, sufficient to exclude the passage of air to within."
"As the flame reduces the air within, so a massive suction doth occur, pleasuring the gentleman in an instant, reducing his immediate defires, soon dousing the flame and with the additional promise of the extension of both length and girth of the gentleman's equipment."

Schroedinger's Cat: Wanted Dead And/Or Alive - XL
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This is a turbo-charged spice-rack, and it can do zero to Basil in 2.7 seconds. It has been featured in such programs as Martha "Jackie" Stewart's "Formula One Fondue" and Anthony Bordain's "No Time for This Sh*t!"

Heart Deco S
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It's the first portable glass harmonica invented by Ben Franklin. You attach it to a string around your neck and adjust it to your needs, wet the rim, and blow across it to make a note.

When life gives you mold, make penicillin. Ladies fit, S. Ash gray.
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It's actually an inkwell. My husband and I are antique dealers and have a double inkwell with the same sort of well, snail shaped. The spout is towards the top, against a stopper on the upper part of the frame.

You can tip the well away from the stopper to dip your pen or refill the well with ink.
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