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What is it? Game 33

Alex •

Today's collaboration with What is it? blog brings us this strange looking tool - 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.

Technically, no one got it right, but there are a couple of good guesses (booby trap, trip wire gun) and one really close one (gopher trap). Here's the answer:

Anti-rodent device or mouse killer pistol, invented in 1862. To operate: Pull back the hammer and insert the safety, place a percussion cap on the nipple, load 10 grains of black powder into the barrel along with some paper wadding, put some peanut butter on the bottom of the trigger, place the device in a good location, set the sear, and finally, remove the safety.


Comments (26)

It looks to me like an early starter's pistol. You can see a where the psitol's hammer is -- looks like it takes a percussion cap like early 19th century firearms. I am guessing the big lever is a foot operated release, but I'm not certain of that.

(I actually like the booby trap answer better, but I got beaten to that).
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Look at the brown part in the lower half of the picture. See the black part in the middle that points upward and to the right? That's a percussion nipple. Resting on that nipple is a hammer that curves upward and to the right. The black, curved object that is connected to the base with a screw and rests against the lower right end of the hammer is a mainspring. The part sticking out to the left is a trigger. The pin at the top with the attached chain, I am not familiar with; perhaps it is a removable safety pin.

Thus, this is quite obviously a percussion lock for a firearm or similar device. I've never seen one of this overall configuration before. Perhaps it is for use on a small artillery piece.
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This is a little wood plane that was worn on the end of a watch fob. I have a book that describes this very tool, but I am moving and it's buried. If memory serves, it was meant to shave tiny bits of wood from instuments back in the day. Norm Abram mentions it in his book "Measure twice, cut once".
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