What is it? Set 443

[Rob H.]

I need some help with the first and last items in this set:

[Alexander Thesoso]

2572 I've never seen this, but... It is a semi-automatic palm gun. The magazine is the area behind the cover with the 3 holes. The trigger is the ring. The sear is in the bottom center of the first picture. The striker is between the two long springs at the top. The two long springs and the linkage at the center are the extractor.

2573 From the artsy shape of the handles, I'd say this is a surgical tool rather than a kitchen scissors.

2569 A medical Quack device to provide quadrature ("rotating") electric field. I guess it contains a coil rotated by the knob and a pair of orthogonal output coils.

2571 Obviously a tool to turn a valve > I need some help with the first and last items in this set:

[Dennis]

It might be the one Don Foreman made to access that valve down at the lake!

(Hope you're going well Don).

[Ed Huntress]

2573: Lobster shears (Also sold as kitchen shears)

[Rob H.]

Yes, palm gun is the answer that I was looking for.

I was guessing that it was a power supply for some type of equipment but quack device sounds like a good possibility.

[Rob H.]

This answer is correct, it was in a box along with a lobster cracker.

[Leon]

2572 Starter pistol

[Stormin Mormon]

2569, don't have any real knowledge. I'm guessing that modern doctors would say "quack" about this. 2570, with that much metal, I'd be wondering if it's for whacking or beating something. A bit much for massage. Maybe a nut cracker? 2571, some kind of specialized valve turning wrench. Beyond that, not sure. 2572, Polish Suicide Pistol. Hold the body of the device, pull the ring. I'm getting the sense that it's a small, easy to conceal firearm. But, I've never seen such a design. 2573, hair shears? 2574, no clue.

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

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[Sonny]

2574 - A tooth elevator? This site - has a double elevator, page down near the bottom, under "Dental Tools 1800s".

"The dental instrument on the top is a double elevator. It was used to apply hard pressure to the tooth. This forced the tooth against one of the sides of the socket causing the bone around the tooth to compress. After repeating this step many times, the socket became larger, loosening the tooth. The next step was to use the bottom instrument, a toothkey, so named because of its similarity to an eighteenth-century door key. The claw attached around the patient=EF=BF=BDs tooth allowing for extraction."

Sonny

[Rob H.]

Someone left a comment on the web site concerning the wooden piece from two weeks ago, the one with the slot in the middle and the metal part on the top, they said it looks like a balero, which is a cup and ball type toy from Mexico except in this case the wooden object is caught on a stick. I'm looking to get a few more opinions on this theory so if you have any thoughts pro or con on this idea please post them.

The wooden item from my site:

is a photo of a balero:

[tiredofspam]

2569. Easy that's a shock therapy unit designed to raise the hair on Bill's head.

2573 Since they were made in Italy , they must be the GOD FATHERS finger remover.

[Leon]

Look Familiar?

2573.

[anorton]

2574 could be a cauterizing iron to kill infection and stop bleeding. Here is a modern veterinary equivalent:

[Rich Grise]

2569: This looks very much like something from the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices. It's missing the wires and electrodes that should be connected to the binding posts2573 arrayed around the dial. There might be a hidden battery, or two of the posts may have been battery terminals. It could be anything from a galvanometer to a phlogiston meter. 2570: At first it looks like a diamond-shaped pestle, but the third image makes the head look like a scoop of some kind. The only reason I can think of for a diamond-shaped pestle would be to do stuff that has round slippery granules, so you could corner the little barstids! 2571: An inverse t-wrench, for operating valves on pipes that were installed by [CENSORED] plumbers. 2572: Single-shot pocket-gun, The safety pin is so that you don't butt-shoot yourself while it's still in your pocket, and incidentally, it looks like it's really easy to conceal, and if you've got a strong pinkie, could probably operate it one. handed! 2573: Obviously a shears of some kind, which unknown. 2574: No guess.

[Leon Fisk]

Looks to me like that is a good answer (Balero). It might be a slightly different version. Per the Wiki page it has several names/varieties depending on the country of origin:

the current set 443, item #2569 may be a Cautery Transformer. I uploaded the relevant page from an old catalog I have locally saved.

if you can't view djvu images:

[Rob H.]

[J Burns]

large balero he uses looks like 8 ounces. The mystery item is 40, which seems too big for flipping on a string. The slit would be useless, and the spacers would come out.

Balero appeared in Mexico in the 16th Century. King Henry III of France played it publicly. He died in 1589. It was obscure in France for a century after that.

Today it is popular under various names in Mexico, Argentina, Brazil,Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Spain. In Spain, it's boliche, the same term they use for tenpins. Like a bowling pin, a balero barrel seems to be cut on a lathe. It would surprise me if the New World had tools to cut a balero on a lathe.

That leads me to speculate. In 1500, Spanish royal cartographer Juan de la Cosa made a map of the New World that was so closely guarded that historians didn't know about it until the 19th Century. Its accuracy is amazing. If their maps were closely guarded secrets, so was the technology. Like the United States government as of 1973, Spain may have directed mapmakers to use the sun to determine north.

In the 14th Century, bowling was so popular in Europe that the kings of England and France outlawed it. Asturias, Spain, has a bowling museum with exhibits dating back to 1495. Spanish surveyors may have found that the balance, diameter, and bulge of bowling pins made them ideal to sight sunups and sundowns. Best of all, a spy would assume the cartographer simply liked to bowl.

In the New World, what better way to win hearts and minds than to distribute souvenir bowling pins, symbols of Spanish technology in manufacturing and surveying? If bowling pins had hollow bottoms to raise the center of mass, the natives could play balero. That could have led Spain to export millions of balero barrels.

California was Mexican until 1846. With a slit to sight the sun at the right moment, 40 ounces to resist the breeze, and bone markers, this may have been the state of the art for a Mexican mapmaker. Those white disks would show up on almost any ground. The surveyor would probably mark them with flags.

In 1846, the Americans took over. Their best surveyors had solar compasses, and everybody forgot what the antique was for.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it... for now.

[DoN. Nichols]

2569) O.K. Two heavy duty ground terminals (binding posts (lower corners, connected to the front plate.

Two heavier insulated terminals at the top.

Two lighter insulated terminals at the left hand side.

Pointer knob with 13 visible marked positions, and possibly another under the tag hanging from right-most top binding post.

Pointer between two markings, suggesting that it is not a detented switch -- unless the setscrew for the knob was loosened and retightened off position.

Markings cover about the 270 degree arc which is common for potentiometers (variable resistors), but the knob suggests that it might be a Variac (or some other brand name) variable autotransformer inside. If a Variac, it will be quite heavy, though it could also have a separate power transformer in it which is not obvious from the views we are shown.

Lacking any other markings, and any other views of the box (e.g. the back or bottom might have a power cord, I'll have to assume that whatever power it uses comes in between one of the ground binding posts and one of the heavier top ones. The output, then, would come out one or both of the left side binding posts, either referenced to the ground binding posts, or to each other.

It could be for delivering an adjustable shock voltage to a patient. Such were once believed to be beneficial.

It could be for adjusting signals to a pair of headphones, to test hearing sensitivity.

Lots of other possibilities.

2570) Perhaps for splitting slate, or some other form of stone work? 2571) A ratcheting wrench for operating something like a valve whose stem faces away. I don't see all of the ratcheting mechanism (which looks like one which would be found on an old woodworking drill brace.) 2572) Looks like a firearm which is enabled by a key -- perhaps another form of jailer's key gun. If the key or the gun are grabbed individually, they do not arm the inmates, but the jailer, possessing both, is armed. Looks to be at least multi-shot, and perhaps self-loading as well. 2573) Poultry shears. The notch is for cutting through bones. 2574) Perhaps not actually medical, but rather a seal used with sealing wax to indicate that a bill has been paid.

Now to post this and see what others have suggested.

Enjoy, DoN.

[Stormin Mormon]

Some of those treatments look as painful as the disease. Or, more so. I wonder if the doctors killed more patients than the disease?

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

.

2574 - A tooth elevator? This site - has a double elevator, page down near the bottom, under "Dental Tools 1800s".

"The dental instrument on the top is a double elevator. It was used to apply hard pressure to the tooth. This forced the tooth against one of the sides of the socket causing the bone around the tooth to compress. After repeating this step many times, the socket became larger, loosening the tooth. The next step was to use the bottom instrument, a toothkey, so named because of its similarity to an eighteenth-century door key. The claw attached around the patient?s tooth allowing for extraction."

Sonny

[J Burns]

school and showed me a similar box. It had belonged to his grandfather, a doctor in practice about 1900.

The box contained a 1.5V carbon-zinc doorbell battery. I was sure it must be flat after all those years, but we hooked it up. We fiddled until I did a backward somersault across the living room into a couch.

As I tumbled, I thought he must have punched me incredibly hard. When I came to a stop, I saw he wasn't aware I was gone.

If it was a cautery transformer, the battery didn't belong with it. We may have hooked the battery to the low side. I may have grabbed the terminals on the high side. If he broke the battery connection, that could have caused a pulse on my side, like ignition points.