What Are These Things For? (20 pics)
Soft silken balls fills with maybe rice from Japan.
A: A set of otedama.
Found in an old cabinet, made entirely of glass with narrowing holes all the way through.
A: It’s a flower frog used to hold flower arrangements in a vase. It’s been made obsolete by foam and gel.
Strange pipe. What is the orange sludge?
A: Iron bacteria. I know because i have this problem in my basement. It isn't fun and it isn't pretty. It is harmless, just icky and a pain in the neck.
Mounds outside of hotel near Seoul.
A: Being Korean, my very first thought is "happy mound" where someone is buried.
Found in the Portuguese shore.
A: It's likely ambergris, which is produced by sperm whales.
Anyone know what this metal object is? (Might be photography related).
A: Looks like an old fashioned Graflex camera flash. These are rare as they were used as novelty light sabers from Star Wars.
My dad found this in his house when he got back from holiday. No idea how it got there but that's a different mystery altogether. Looks like a syringe but the middle (green) bit has no hole at the end and moves up and down into the clear claws at the end.
A: Its a pill dispenser for pets, the pill goes in to the claws and you use the plunger to shoot the pill to the back of the throat.
Found these tiny metallic (I think) balls in a pile at a truck stop. They’re all perfectly spherical, can’t be crushed or melted. It feels like metal sand.
A: They’re balancing beads. Pour them inside a tire to balance it instead of putting it on a machine. Cheaper for drivers and faster for technicians.
Found while metal detecting near an abandoned gold mine circa 1850 in Pike national forest in Colorado.
A: This is a pre-1911 Chinese coin. Or at least, it’s designed based on a Ming era coin referred to as a Yongle Tongbao 永樂通寶. Yongle is the name of a Ming era emperor who died in 1424 and Tongbao refers to a type of coin with a hole in it. These coins had different denominations based on their material (silver, bronze, copper) and weight.
I found this in a drawer at my job (at a nonprofit). Yale cleaners is a local dry cleaning place, but I’m still not sure what this is. The red is soft and fabric like.
A: Lint brush.
Found this in my yard buried a foot deep.
A: It looks like a fire mark. They were attached to homes near the front door to show that you paid for your fire insurance. This way, the original fire insurance companies (think fire department) would actually work to put out a fire that started in your home.
Found a metal rod with a ball and a U-shaped thing on the end. It has a wooden handle. Any ideas?
A: It’s a slide hammer. It’s a pulling tool for removing gears or pulleys off of splines. This looks old and specialized but it’s a slide hammer all the same. Insert the 2 hooks into whatever you want to pull out and rock the metal ball against it to remove it from a tight fit — like the reverse action of a hammer or press.
Found in some old sewing supplies!
A: It is the third hand for sewing. The red string (and the fact that it was found with sewing things) is the key.
2 thick wooden sticks in a curved, open wood case at 3 inches long.
A: It’s a business card holder and displayer, and those are weights to keep them tight.
This was given to us when my father-in-law passed away, and we don’t know what it is!
A: Looks like an erhu to me. It’s an old, beat up Chinese fiddle (missing a string, tuning peg, and sound tube cover) for sure. That being said, the button does serve a purpose. It’s supposed to be used as a kind of guide for the string.
What is this single-stringed instrument? The seller said it was from Morocco and made by a Tunisian craftsman.
A: It’s a gusle. Many of them have goat heads on them.
Two plugs on this outlet, not sure what either of them are for! Found in master bedroom of a house built in late 1970s.
A: Old TV antenna. The kind you could remotely rotate to get better reception.
Possibly a kitchen item? Found it in a bag of kitchen things. It can be compressed by gripping.
A: It’s a thing for marine activities and boating called a ‘shark clip’ or longline. It’s a very clever clip to attach things to a line like a buoy. Longline fishermen also use tons of these clips for connecting hooks lines to a long line.
This was found in an old toolshed. It’s made in Sweden by Bahco. Some sort of tool?
A: I believe it’s for pulling out nails back when they were square. My dad had one like 20 years ago. And Bahco still makes this particular model.
What is this wooden ball with dice-like imprints?
A: It’s not wood. I’m pretty sure that’s a batting cage ball that has sat out for a long time and dried out.
