I Bought This Strange Little Object Yesterday — Even My Grandparents Couldn’t Identify It

Kitchens Are Full of Forgotten Gadgets

Old kitchen equipment is particularly good at confusing modern collectors.

Before electric appliances became common, people needed mechanical solutions for jobs that machines now perform automatically.

There were specialized tools for slicing eggs, coring fruit, grinding meat, whipping cream, cracking nuts, separating cream, opening jars, sharpening blades, cutting pastry, forming butter, removing pits and dozens of other tiny jobs.

Some were incredibly clever.

Others were hilariously complicated.

And many disappeared because a newer appliance made them unnecessary.

Take an object out of its original kitchen environment and remove the food it was designed to handle, and its purpose can become almost impossible to guess.

Something that looks like a torture device might simply have been used to remove cherry pits.

Sewing Tools Can Be Even More Mysterious

Vintage sewing accessories create the same problem.

People once routinely used tools that many households no longer keep.

There were elaborate needle cases, thread holders, darning tools, tatting shuttles, glove stretchers, bodkins, rug-making tools, lace-making equipment and countless specialized accessories.

Some were designed beautifully enough to look like jewelry.

If you found one in a box at a flea market today, you might never guess its original purpose.

That’s why knowing where an object was found can sometimes be nearly as useful as seeing the object itself.

An unidentified piece found inside an old sewing basket immediately points investigators in a different direction than something discovered in a barn.

Then There Are Old Office Gadgets

Modern offices have eliminated an astonishing number of physical objects.

Think about everything computers replaced.

Mechanical calculators.

Ink blotters.

Letter openers.

Stamping devices.

Carbon-paper accessories.

Typewriter tools.

Paper fasteners.

Seal presses.

Specialized punches.

Pen-cleaning equipment.

Even an object used daily by office workers a century ago might be completely unrecognizable to someone today.