“This is an illuminated stand for a pocket watch. Sitting on a mantle or dresser, the pocket watch could be seen at a distance as a room clock.”
“This is likely a powder measuring tool. It would have an outer brass sleeve that this would have slid into. You pull down on the wooden handle to get it to the right line, then fill it up. Pretty common in black powder rifles. Think old-timey muskets. Black powder is often measured in drams or grains, which are two units of measure that are not very common.”
“It’s a coal furnace damper. It would have rods or a chain connected to the furnace in the basement or other room.”
“That is a fluxy stump! Its cause is that the roots aren’t completely dead and send sap up, and there’s a complex colony of microbes living off the sap.”
“100% the fuse to an artillery shell. Place it on the floor, and walk away. Call the local authorities. It probably won’t explode, but I have no idea what type of explosives the fuses contain.”
“Very hard picture to interpret, but it could be the epiphysis (growth plate) of an immature whale’s vertebra. Example 1, example 2, example 3.”
“That is a Shore Scleroscope! It’s an instrument that was used to test the hardness of metals. It does so by dropping a weight down the tube and measuring how high it bounces back, hence the numbered marks. Here’s a low-resolution video of one being used.”
“Roughly late 1930s hair curling tool.”
“That’s a beekeeper’s swarm trap. The natural reproduction of a honeybee hive is to spin off one (or more) swarms in the spring. Those swarms hang in a tree or under an eave while they send out scouts to look for a place to establish a new hive. Once a suitable place is found, they move in and start building.
These traps give them a place to move into, but the beekeeper will keep an eye on them and transfer them to a hive before they get too far along. It’s a free colony and is easier than having to remove them from someone’s shed or BBQ grill.”
“The base of a Pyrex Un-candle Captain’s Lamp.”
“It’s a seal/stamp set. If the bottom of each small piece is smooth, they are for you to custom carve your name (pen name). A lot of workshops in China can do it easily. Maybe your local Chinatown will be able to do it as well. Cool stuff.”
“It seems to be a bar puzzle that goes well with a few drinks.”
“Fold out recipe card holder like this one.”
“Looks like an antique knotter.”
“A seal from a formal document of some sort. There are some pretty similar examples here.”
“It’s a bingo matchbook, a prank device.”
“To elaborate on this, you would put a ‘cap’ inside the matchbook, then the flap would hold a spring-loaded striker down. When somebody opened the matchbook, it would release the striker, hit the cap, and set it off (‘bang!’). Cap in this context is like a ‘cap gun’ noise-making blank toy for kids.”
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