MYSTERY OBJECTS

[David Whipp]

Made by "Kaufman" USA in 1917. a nice piece of brass pivots and swivels. What's its purpose. (think Elliot Ness).
ATTACHMENTS

Thumbscrew?

[chinatyke]

Made by "Kaufman" USA in 1917. a nice piece of brass pivots and swivels. What's its purpose. (think Elliot Ness).
ATTACHMENTS

Thumbscrew?

A barrel tapping device which Elliot Ness and his agents would use to empty illicit barrels of beer/spirits?

I like David's answer better!

[Tizer]

Made by "Kaufman" USA in 1917. a nice piece of brass pivots and swivels. What's its purpose. (think Elliot Ness).

Is it something to do with guns?

[plaques]

Time to throw some light on this object.
Its a search light that they clamped to the side of the car to expose criminal acts.
What criminal acts these were I won't go into.

PS. I'm still looking for a 6 inch glass for it. Our local car store doesn't stock them any more!

[Stanley]

[David Whipp]

Well, it's a shuttle....?

[Tizer]

Time to throw some light on this object. Its a search light that they clamped to the side of the car to expose criminal acts.

That's interesting - if you'd confirmed my suggestion that it was to do with guns I was going to suggest that it clamped a machine gun onto the door of a car!

[Stanley]

You appear to have stalled on the shuttle. Question is what is it for? Obviously not an ordinary weft shuttle.

[Stanley]

No takers.... It's a special small shuttle for inserting gold wire into fabrics intended for the Indian market.....

[LizG]

Never would have got that one.

[plaques]

What is the main purpose of this object in Lancashire

[PanBiker]

Inspecting faults in cloth

[chinatyke]

Determining the thread count of fabric, eg 80 square, although there was an easier way of doing this using the Shirley Institute gratings.

In fact this model was widely used in the textile industry, as Panbiker says, for cloth inspections. I've also seen them used by colourists in colour matching of small swatches.

[Stanley]

They've both got it.

[LizG]

My Dad still has one of these from his time working at Listers (in Bradford I think) and Yorkshire Plush.

I like your pies Stanley.

[plaques]

Mystery object Lancashire.

Drat it. Everybody's right.

[plaques]

While thinking about Stanley's pasty.

Which line of Shakespeare's soliloquy "To be or not to be" could this object be attributed to?

[Stanley]

It's not a pasty.

Sleep.

[Tizer]

The folding thread count device is the same design as that used for inspecting font size by printers and publishers. I have a plastic version which has millimetres marked out on one side.

Is Stanley's pie/pasty actually `flies' graveyard'?

[Cathy]

Stanley's version of Foccacia Bread ??

[chinatyke]

Which line of Shakespeare's soliloquy "To be or not to be" could this object be attributed to?

Is it a piano tuning key? In which case "and enterprises of great pitch and moment" could be appropriate.

Or is it just a spanner and "to grunt and sweat under a weary life" would be more apt.

At least you got me reading Shakespeare again, something I swore I wouldn't do after leaving school all those years ago. Can't say that Shakespeare's works are any more appreciated by me now than 50 years earlier. I'm sure he was masochist whose sole intent was to injure schoolboys brains.

[plaques]

It would have to be a very GRAND piano. You might grunt and sweat a bit but it does have a single purpose. There used to be loads of these about but fashion has taken its toll.
As for Shakespeare, sneaky wasn't it! I always found that you had to ponder on every line to such an extent that you forgot what the plot was about.

I guess Stanley is on the right lines but only gave one word.

So its still open to the size 12 hats with a good memory.

[Stanley]

Tiz, near enough, it's a current sad cake.....

P, you only asked which part of the quotation applied. I claim the prize!

[chinatyke]

Tiz, near enough, it's a current sad cake.....

Electrofying!!! (From the film Grease)

Sorry, couldn't resist that.

[Gloria]

Something to do with a hat stretcher???