OT What is it ?

I'll take a shot...

Since it is sitting on top of a crate that says 4 Doz Eggs, it might be a egg carton forming press.

I'm not sure what material you would use, maybe some semi-dry paper pulp. Admittedly, I'm not sure how you would remove the carton if it was still of a formable consistency once pressed.

Bingo ! ... thanks. John T.

I'm old enough to recall that eggs were once sold in lightweight cardboard cartons that were obviously die cut and "assembled" to hold the eggs.

There's no way this device could have anything to do with today's foam plastic cartons or the molded paper cartons. However, take a flat die cut carton that needs to be folded along the dotted lines and this is your tool.

Man, you are old... ;~) I remember them too.

A chair for unwelcome guests. :)

I guess that's your way of saying "You were very close". ;-)

Never saw an egg carton before I was 19 or 20. We got the eggs out of the nest. The first cartons I remember were the paper pulp type.

s ..

I remember two types of egg cartons. One was the Molded paper ones with

in which each egg was placed in it own little cup.

The other was constructed like the box that you may see for Christmas tree ornaments. The dividers work pieces of thin cardboard with another

for a divider.

Maybe I am being dense but I don see how the pictured devise could make egg cartons.

The angles on the projection of the massive piece look wrong, and the "Cutter" appears to go between the wide grove in the middle of the massive piece.

Maybe I am not old enough to see the type of egg box it would make. I am only 75 years old.

On 1/4/2020 11:02 AM, Unquestionably Confused wrote: ...

Possible...I wonder at the asymmetry, though...

a google image search - if the link works :

John T.

SWMBO works at a county-owned farm that serves as a day-hab for adults with physical and mental disabilities. Part of her responsibilities is helping h er "guys" take care of the animals, including collecting the eggs. What they d on't use for cooking stuff at the farm, she brings home. Typically more than eno ugh for the 2 of us.

Looks like an egg crate with a fancy paperweight sitting on it - - -

See one at

On Saturday, January 4, 2020 at 4:23:25 PM UTC-5, snipped-for-privacy@ccanoemail.ca wrot e:

us ..

The link works fine.

I surprised no one put an unboxing/review on YouTube when the device first came out. ;-)

I actually did a youtube search to see HOW it works.. no luck. The "fancy" ones have some extra mechanical features - but the one at the auction seems too simple to actually work ? Dunno .. John T.

On Saturday, January 4, 2020 at 6:04:09 PM UTC-5, snipped-for-privacy@ccanoemail.ca wrot e:

Yeah, I did the same thing. Very few things haven't been YouTube'd, but this may be one of them.

Well, you've got me by a few years but I went looking for the type of vintage egg cartons that I described earlier. I definitely recall seeing them in the home back in the 1950's but couldn't recall if they were still in vogue when I was a supermarket bagger in the early 1960's.

I did a Google image search for vintage 1950's egg cartons and while I got a lot of the molded pulp ones (even some foam ones, such are the vagaries of Google search), lo and behold I found some of the die cut heavy paper/light cardboard ones that I recall.

As a bonus I also found two of the "mystery machines" which started this thread. One was labeled "egg carton press" and the other, I think, "egg carton maker."

They didn't make the cartons, they merely formed them into a usable shape from a die cut piece of heavy paper stock. It looks like you'd lay the stock on top of the device and pull the lever down and that would "pop" the pockets into place to hold the eggs. Think of the stock being similar in weight to "shirt board" that the cleaners & retailers used to use to package new or newly cleaned and pressed shirt. It would be cut like a puzzle and pressing down with this tool would lock everything in place simultaneously. The cartons I recall could be flattened again by hand if you were careful - they really were kind of a puzzle.

Not so strange if you consider that the damn thing was probably first developed or used by some Amish farmer and, well, you know how long it took them to start making computer desks. ;)

I remember reading an article one time where someone walked into an Amish factory and found that it was full of multiaxis NC machines working a way but lit with gas.

The Amish apparently make a distinction between what is needed to be competitive in the market and what is allowed socially.