What is it? Weekend Edition 12

[Rob H.]

People send me a lot of unusual items that they are looking to identify, maybe a third of them get posted on the web site, the rest don't make it for one reason or another, although I've got hundreds of photos waiting to be posted so sometimes it takes a while for me to get to them.

Below are some photos that I'm not planning to post on the site but I still think they are interesting, the first three were sent in and I have found the answer for them. The last is from an auction, I think I know what it is but I'm not sure.

1. Someone found this on an outside wall of their house:
2. Probably between 2 and 4 inches long, made of rubber:
3. The ears at the top of this one can pivot:
4. The tool in the foreground is about 1-1/4" long:

Rob

[BobH]

un-PC.

BobH

[Paul K. Dickman]

Number 2 is a set of 1/4 tips for shoe heels.

K. Dickman

[Baron]

Rob H. Inscribed thus:

Replacement heels for shoes or boots !

[WW]

#4 pipe stand reminds me when I was a youngster my dad smoked many pipes. One day came home from work and found that Mom had soaked and cleaned his pipes because the smelled so bad. Wow, he was not a happy camper...WW

>

[Nahmie]

#1 is, if I recall, a hanger for a broom, mop, etc. Had one very similar @ the farm by the back door. Whoa! Wrong one! It's a clothesline tensioner. Put line between the two "ears" and down through the "shoe" on the bottom. Pull down to set tension, the tension holds the "shoe" tight to hold the tension. Norm

[Rob H.]

#1 is, if I recall, a hanger for a broom, mop, etc. Had one very similar @ the farm by the back door. Whoa! Wrong one! It's a clothesline tensioner. Put line between the two "ears" and down through the "shoe" on the bottom. Pull down to set tension, the tension holds the "shoe" tight to hold the tension. Norm

Good answer, the patent can be seen here:

[Rob H.]

> Paul K. Dickman

Yes, that's the same link that I had found, maybe I'm misjudging it but the size and shape don't look right for a heel, I don't understand why it folds and why there is a groove, also don't see why it's called quarter tips. And the shoe on the box cover at the link doesn't look compatible with them, so I'm not having much luck making sense of this thing.

[Rob H.]

It isn't a pipe bowl, it's just a small wood container with a stand.

[Bill]

Mortise and Pestle?

Bill

[Paul K. Dickman]

>>> Paul K. Dickman

It is actually two pieces for the left and right heel. They're for just the corner of the heel (the part you wear down). The rest of the heel is usually leather. Paul K. Dickman

[Rob H.]

My guess is that it's a snuff container, but I suppose it could be for other drugs as well, hard to say for sure.

[Rob H.]

That makes sense, I guess they would cut away the worn part of the heel until the replacement part was a good fit.

Rob

[J Burns]

>>>>> Paul K. Dickman

They were cut in half like these.

in 1915, everybody in the world was crazy about rubber heels to make shoes last longer. Except the British. They didn't like the feel. Their leather heels were cut away on the back and dovetailed to accept rubber quarter heels.

[Matthew Russotto]

3. The ears at the top of this one can pivot:

[Gerald Miller]

Gerry :-)} London, Canada

[Rob H.]

Correct, the gate was held between the two ears, either ear was lifted to open the gate, to close it the gate was swung back to the latch and the ear was lifted by the gate and then fell back to lock it in place.

Here is the patent for it:

Rob

[pierre]

long:

last item is a teapot from Argentina. The tea is brewed in the wooden pot and drunk through the "straw" that has a strainer at the bottom. Additional photo at:

[Rob H.]

> Pierre

The wooden item in my photo is quite small, about the size of a grape, note that I said the tool in the foreground is about 1-1/4" long. The container is too small to hold enough liquid to drink but large enough to hold some snuff (powdered tobacco), the tool could be used as a small spoon to hold some of the powder up to the nose where it would be inhaled. Or it could have been for some other kind of powdered drug. This is just a guess but I can't think of any better ideas for it.

Rob

[humunculus]

Wow, how could it NOT be a Yerba and calabash? Do a google.image search, and the similarity is overwhelming. Maybe its a tourist-shop model, or possibly some sort of small-scale reproduction for a display of some sort.