What is it? Game 70

Hooray! It's time for our collaboration with the What is it? blog - can you guess what this strange contraption is for?

Place your guess in the comment section - no prize this week, so you're playing for fame and glory only. For more clues (and more guessing fun), check out the What is it? blog.

Update 7/25/08 - the answer:
A trap for taking live animals, the top and bottom both collapse, making the height just a couple of inches. It's placed in a shallow stream, when it's tripped the animal's leg is caught, after the top expands the leg is released and the elevation apparatus is activated, raising the trap several inches above the water. It's called a Gibbs Armadillo trap because of how it looks, but it was used for catching live muskrats so they could be transported to another area, patent number 1,765,144.


Congrats to SoLo who got it right first!

this is some sort of a trap! on the left hand side at the bottom is the activator.
the funny design is because its designed to fold it together for storage reasons!
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Looks like a trap. The spring makes it go down to the right side. You fold it open to the left to get the animal out (like a hedgehog) The string keeps the animal from walking away with it.
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It's a Roly Poly trap! Pill bugs, potato bugs and doodle bugs crawl over the oval rim at the bottom and flip on their backs. A den of spiders live hidden in Roly Poly-styled alcove above and simply swoop down to grab dinner.

This was a mail-order observation science toy when I was a kid. The spiders always arrived dead in the package and you had to collect new ones from around your home. The new ones never stayed put and you'd wake up at night with them crawling on you.
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Yep, it's a Gibbs Armadillo trap. Here is another image: http://northern-antlers.com/images/antiqu4.jpg

But the question remains, is it used to trap armadillos, or is it called that because it looks like an armadillo?
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This is an automatic electric wig warmer designed by Thomas Edison. In those days, it was considered a luxury to be able to put a nice warm wig on your head before heading out in the cold.
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OK, got word back from the kind folks at northern-antlers.com. Here's what they wrote:

"Its called that because It looks like an Armadillo, It was actually used to catch muskrats alive. It was only made between 1925-1930 by the Gibbs Trap Co., they are bulky and It was not realistic to try and carry a dozen of them Into the marsh. Today they are a must have for collectors and are highly prized In any collection. The term "armadillo" Is slang and caught on In the later years by collectors, It was manufactured and sold as the 'Gibbs live muskrat trap.'"
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This is a Sootball helmet to protect the chimney-sweeps who were the primary players of Sootball. Note the mouthgard, nose-picker and vents for breathability.
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Its a Schlemer-Vorstein submersable torpedo degausser. Or in the original nomenclature: Einem SchlemerVorsteingUntenseeTorpedischungaussermachensteinbessenessenvor11/17. This device was carried on WW1 U boats to prevent torpedos from becomming magnetically charged, thus disrupting their primitive clockwork guidance systems, causing them to 'fly' from water and explode harmlessly in the stratosphere. Expensive to manufacture, difficult to maintain, and of no practical use, the lack of strategic materials and manpower due to these devices implementation possibly caused Imperial Germanys defeat in the great War.
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IS IS A GIBBS LIVE MUSKRAT TRAP!!THE TOP PART WAS PUSHED OVER AND IT LOCKED...THEN YOU MASH IT DOWN FLAT...THE MUSKRAT WOULD SWIM UP ON IT..THE SLINKY PART WOULD CLOSE OVER HIM THEN IT WOULD RAISE ITSELF OUT OF THE WATER ABOUT 3 INCHES SO THE MUSKRAT WOULD NOT DROWN....USED FOR RELOCATING MUSKRATS...QUITE RARE AND VALUABLE!!!MARK
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