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Help indentifying this

Does anyone know what this is 

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Help indentifying this

Nice find and a great question... what is it?

 

Short answer, I don't know.

 

Longer answer... I found other examples of the same item, with many 'guesses' on what they could be. However, no one seems to know for certain, but there are some very interesting guesses.

 

The most extensive discussion that I have found so far is on Reddit.

There is another, post on Reddit from another user who is trying to identify the same type of object. This one looks exactly like yours.

 

And another discussion on the 'Antigue Radios' website.

Doing an 'Image Search' on Google will turn up a few more discussions on this item.

People have suggested all kinds of possible uses, from boot scrapers, livestock feeders, firewood holders to champaign bottle decanters... and honestly each of these guesses has arguments against them.

 

What can be agreed on are the following:

  • It is not very big, perhaps 20" x 20" making it useless as a livestock feeder
  • The bottom brace is wooden and is permanently attached to the wrought iron frame (it does not rotate). Making it poor material for a fireplace tool.
  • The loops at the end of the chains fit loosely on the carved pegs, meaning that the pegs can be used to organize the chains, but not to hold them in place.
  • The area around the pegs is carved at an angle, meaning whatever is sitting on the pegs will also be at an angle. Bottles make sense to me, to be able to reach all of the contents of the bottle with a straw.
  • Several different styles of this item have appeared on the web, at least one from europe and one in the US. Meaning that they are not 'one-off pieces of art'. They had a purpose.
  • The handle and size of the item makes it clear that it was ment to be easily moved.
  • The construction of the item appears to be from the 1940's to possibly the 1950's.
  • It is also apparent that something is missing from these images. If we could find an image of the item being used, it would be fairly easy to determine what it was designed to hold.

 

My best guess is that it was used to hold and disburse a chemical fertilizer (or something that needed to be siphon mixed with water before being disbursed.) If this is close to being correct, then the bottles would also be specific to a particular manufacturer (who probably made both a commercial and a residential sized product - this one would be the residential version). The bottles would probably have a valve to turn on/off/control the mix of the bottles contents.

 

I suppose it could also be used for filling bottles, although i seams to be overkill for that use.

 

Hopefully someone with a WorthPoint account could do a search there to see if any similar item has appeared on ebay before. Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

Can you tell use anything more about it? Where you got it? What its history might have been? etc...

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