Today's collaboration with What is it? blog brings us this strange looking device - can you guess what it is? More clues and another photo at What is it? blog.
Place your guess in the comment section, but please post no URLs - let others play! No prize this week, you're playing for bragging rights only.
Update 8/10/07 - here's the answer:
Intruder alarm, screwed into a door or window frame, a percussion cap is placed on the nipple and black powder goes into the barrel. When the device is triggered, the spring powered hammer hits the percussion cap, which fires the black powder, scaring away the unwanted visitor. It could also be attached to a tree and rigged to a tripwire for an outdoor alarm.It was a stumper! No one got it right, though "Ye Olde Stapler" is an excellent guess!
as a trable wacker in the Nova Scotia melding pits one summer and wore out three wedges until I learned how to do it right. Never clack-slat to the left of the shim break!
The brass ones were the best, I had to use the malachite models because I was new and inexperienced.
Hmmm, the size of the lag on the end, where it screws into something, suggests it could hold a bit of weight.
Hmmmmm......
maybe mounted vertically to hold a bike. (ole timey storage doo-higgy)