What is It? Game 23.

This week's collaboration with What is It? Blog brings us this mysterious object (more clues at the What is It?). Can you guess what it is?

Place your guess on the comment section (please post no URL, let others play). Two Free T-Shirts as prizes: one for first correct guess, and another one for funniest/most creative guess.

Update 6/1/07: The answer is :

Book clamp, in the days before book bags, this was invented to be used for carrying books. Patent number 198,437
No one got it right, but I was tickled by #19 Awko's guess that the device is for the "lost art of snake pressing." Just what kind of snake were you referring to Awko? ;) So, congrats! You got the t-shirt for funniest guess.


I have it on bad authority that this is a device used in training by the late contortionist Harry Houdini.
Two hours a day on this and he could escape from any tight situation.

Personally, I disagree,
Is this an old fashioned trouser press?
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I think it is something to press sheets of paper together before the pages were stiched or pasted. I seems that pressure was gained as the handle was twisted. Definitely it was used to manufacture books!
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This is an oldstyle penis enlarging kit with handles now only 2,99 ;)

but personally i think its a device to handle and lift materials in blocka [bricks maby]
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Its a curvicle. As a boy it my chore to go out to the chilling hut and curvicle the family's shoe points before Sunday church. This was quite a task before the epidemic. I had really hoped to never see one again, just looking at it makes my thumbs ache.
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It's a device used in the lost art of snake pressing. It was a common hobby back in the day but was deemed cruel and unnecessary by animal rights activists.

In order to keep the craft going many snake pressers moved on to flower pressing which proved more successful in the long run due to not only flowers being safer to obtain but much prettier to look at.
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I'm afraid I was beaten to the punch. Kevin said crank for tightening a rope bed, and I agree. Remember the phrase 'sleep tight'? That's where it came from.
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Contrary to popular belief, the original Spirograph was not invented nor marketed by Hasbro co., but rather, was an invention created hundreds of years earlier for woodcuts by none other than Leonardo DaVinci. Shown in the picture above is a modern-day replica taken from his notebooks in which the carving implement used to make the woodcut is inserted into the metal wheel in the middle of the device, and by holding the frame of the object against a flat surface, a "spirographic" design was geometrically etched into the template of a piece of wood by spinning the metal wheel in various arcs, later to be duplicated by relief printing the carved image therewith onto paper.
It is conjectured that DaVinci may have used this device to create his famous "Vitruvian Man", but that hypothesis has not been proven as of yet. However, ample circumstantial evidence via Leonardo's other sketches show that his mathematical prowess and geometric forms likely benefited greatly from having this 'prototypical spirograph' invention, and there are many proponents of this theory, in fact, a 10,000 dollar award is being offered by private investors in Italy to disprove that Leonardo used this device in his sketches. No one has claimed that prize yet.
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This is a bit off topic but the Canadian version of Antiques Roadshow has a whatsit. I tried contacting Rob at the what is it blog but couldn't find an address. Maybe you folks can help? http://www.canadianantiquesroadshow.com/tv_link_mystery_item.htm#
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This device is a simple clamp used by furniture makers circa 1900. The wooden rails were placed along the pieces needing clamped, and then the "dial" was wound up until one of the holes aligned with the hoop. This would hold the pieces in their place for gluing under compression.
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It is, obviously, an antique Scanner. Probabbly a Dell.

On a more serious note - Im gonna guess its an old clamp. Where when you turn the dial - the rope gets tighter and tighter pushing the two boards together. And the holes in the dial are so you can put a piece of wood, a stick of sorts, through it so that it does not unravel.

P.S. - If im right, email me :)
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It looks like it would be for squeezing and clamping something together. I would guess it's some sort of tourniquet used in surgeries. Possibly for clamping the umbilical cord after a mother gives birth.
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