OneGuyFromBarlick

Is it used on a Bus or Train?

Sorry, punch is getting closer but not there.
Cathy, no, it would be used in the home.

Is it a press? It squeezes something together like embossing a piece of paper with a seal.

Sorry Graham, no.....

Is it to do with ‘upstairs/downstairs’ type of bells, or tradesmen / delivery boys announcing their arrival at the back of the house.

An early type of stapler?

Sorry no to all of these.... I am trying to think of a clue, you certainly need one. Here's the best I can think of.
The answer sounds like obsolete technology.

Good clues! Is it for taking the stones out of dates?

Is it a press for putting on those metal button thingies on overalls?

Gramaphone needle cutter?

Old School or Bike Bell?

Obviously too good a clue Wendy! Sorry to tell you all that clever clogs Kev has done it again. Many years ago gramophones had fibre needles and this is a little gadget for cutting/ sharpening them.
Next for shaving?

What are these called and how are they used?

Big Kev wrote: ↑26 Sep 2021, 18:33 Gramaphone needle cutter?

Why would you want to cut a needle was my first reaction, but the answer was so crazy, I decided it must be true.

Cathy, the white things look like shelf brackets - but I'm not sure why the liquorice sticks are there!

Are they frames and hangers for vertical blinds?

Sorry Tize and China, no.

Sorry Cathy, I haven't a clue.
David, have a look at THIS for some information about non-steel gramophone needles.

Tize, the long tubes that you called liquorice sticks are called ‘spaghetti straps’ by the staff at the hospital where I volunteer.

Are they to do with paper files Cathy?

For hanging the patient's data and charts on the end of the hospital bed?

They look like the innards of loose leaf filing systems - the black tube bits fit over the plastic prongs, often in ledgers or legal document packs with latest information on top but allowing access and additional insertion of pertinant points in a different subject area -they are not called foldex but it is something like that

Clever girl Wendy
How does it all fit together?

Whyperion- getting close but the tubes (clue) aren’t used that way

I'm guessing Cathy, because the angled bits remind me of similar metal fasteners I have used in the past, that those push up through punched holes in the paper and the other flat pieces sit on top to provide a locking system. No idea about the spaghetti tubes unless they have an open side and are slid over the edges of the paper to bind them.

I've used binding systems that work like that Wendy..... Good luck with it.