Nancy Reading wrote:We haven't had a game recently, so here's one!
Actually, obviously this is a box - it's a small wooden box, so the game is to guess what it is used to contain. I think Permies will appreciate the low tech nature of this, which is used everyday.
Small wooden box with lid half open
I think it is made of oak and is at least 70 years old, possibly a few decades more.
Here it is laid out with a ruler (cm) for scale:
Small wooden box with lid
The bit of wood inside is a bit that broke off the top, which would have prevented the lid going straight across, obviously over the year this has become broken off. I'm thinking of using some small panel pins to fix it, but don't want to damage it further.
Hm. It looks a bit like something for transporting queen bees, except the holes would be really big. Aren't there boxes where you stop up the holes with wax and the drones chew through to get to their queen?
Hm. It looks a bit like something for transporting queen bees, except the holes would be really big. Aren't there boxes where you stop up the holes with wax and the drones chew through to get to their queen?
Absolutely fascinating and completely wrong! :)
The holes are pretty small - generally less than 1/4 inch wide, I'm not sure how deep they are - slightly deeper: probably less than half inch.
If it is not for cribbage then my guess is some sort of game.
Invasive plants are Earth's way of insisting we notice her medicines. Stephen Herrod Buhner
Everyone learns what works by learning what doesn't work. Stephen Herrod Buhner
looks like 48 large holes and 18 small holes. Top looks like it might have some kind of inky residue. as well as the interior of the box. Alpha numeric stamp holder
Our inability to change everything should not stop us from changing what we can.
Nancy Reading
steward and tree herder
Posts: 8877
Location: Isle of Skye, Scotland. Nearly 70 inches rain a year
Robert Ray wrote:looks like 48 large holes and 18 small holes. Top looks like it might have some kind of inky residue. as well as the interior of the box. Alpha numeric stamp holder
I think I'll give you that, you are very close!
I work in a Post Office and this is the box where the date stamp / Postmark cancel is kept.
The holes are for the days of the month and the months of the year, plus a letter 'A' and 'B' which no longer have a function. I also keep all the outdated year stamps, although I have now run out of room!
The stamp itself lives in the large slot, although it is a bit small, so I keep a bit of sponge for cleaning it in there too to stop it rattling around.
If our tiny Post Office still stamped mail, I bet they would use something like that.
The metal pegs are for the date that is stamped on the envelopes.
So cool.
Invasive plants are Earth's way of insisting we notice her medicines. Stephen Herrod Buhner
Everyone learns what works by learning what doesn't work. Stephen Herrod Buhner
Nancy Reading
steward and tree herder
Posts: 8877
Location: Isle of Skye, Scotland. Nearly 70 inches rain a year
The top holes are where I keep the out of date year stamps - I just don't like throwing them away, although it will be a while before they come back in again! We've been here since 2008, so probably 08 is the earliest year I have. I just pop them in the box upside down, since they are a little bit tight in those holes, which are a bit smaller than the others. I notice I had left one in on the empty pictures, which might have given it away a bit!
I only need to change the day, Month and Year at the appropriate time. The bit that identifies the Post Office itself is fixed into the head of the stamp and is not interchangeable. I think it dates from when the Post Office came to this building which was about 1950.
This was in trash I was sorting through. I'm not keeping it, so I didn't wash it before taking pictures. Sorry :D
It's about 4 inches wide by 4 inches high, about 2 inches deep.
I have seen them before, long ago. It reminds of truck stop restaurants. Sitting on the table for some reason. I can't think of what. It bugs me, figured I'd see if it can be ID'd before it goes away.
Thingy: Looking down from the top
Thingy: Side/end view
Thingy: Front view hinged door shut
Thingy: Front view hinged door open, note the slot that doesn't get covered by the door.
Dig through your memories of truck stops in West Texas in the 1970s, do you remember seeing these things? What did they hold?
:D
Sugar packets or something similar and toothpicks? I'll vote with Jay. Toothpicks seem to be the little cubby. It would fit the time, place, and general location.
The main holder? Eh ... sugar packets or jelly packets? I'd probably go with sugar though, those truck stops had the best travel mugs of tea and coffee, but you needed something sweet to cut the bitter.
There is nothing so bad that politics cannot make it worse. - Thomas Sowell
Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom. - Albert Einstein
Reminds me of the fish breeding/brooder tank my stepdad used to keep in the big tank, for his guppies.
"The only thing...more expensive than education is ignorance."~Ben Franklin
"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light." ~ Plato
Bumping this thread... still want to know what was in that plastic thing.
Toothpicks in the small thing makes sense. I'll agree that's likely. But the bigger compartment isn't big enough for napkins, and if there was sugar or jelly in it, a guy with big hands like my dad wouldn't be able to get them out. My dad would have just turned it over and dumped it out, and I know that the toothpicks didn't get dumped out all the time.
Well hm.... trying to answer my own question... went through lots of pictures, came up with things like this
This thing is much smaller than any of them I saw online, I can put three fingers into the main section if I have it turned like that picture. I can't get my hand all the way to the back if I try to put 4 fingers in it, the width of my knuckles won't allow my hand in.
hmmmmm
Edit: got exact measurements, with it sitting like the one in the picture:
total width 3.75 inches
width of bigger space 3 inches
depth to back 4 inches from point to flat back
total height 2 inches
Still on my to get rid of list, I have no use for it.
How odd
The big ones have cereal in them on breakfast bars, and medium ones stack up with asst things like cream and sugar in them at restaurants, but this tiny, all I see are party favors. So my head was thinking bigger ones at the truck stops, but the tiny ones, no.
Weirdness.
i would think aside from party favors, that is for toppings for ice cream at a buffet. remember the Sizzler, Ponderosa, Old Country Buffet, etc? (I was obsessed with that kind of place as a kid)... something like that. we have a lot of "ice cream bars" here that have toppings you can add (then you pay by weight at the end)-- those seem perfect.
I don't suppose you got a pic of the bottom and/or there was any writing?
Tereza Okava wrote:i would think aside from party favors, that is for toppings for ice cream at a buffet. remember the Sizzler, Ponderosa, Old Country Buffet, etc? (I was obsessed with that kind of place as a kid)... something like that. we have a lot of "ice cream bars" here that have toppings you can add (then you pay by weight at the end)-- those seem perfect.
I don't suppose you got a pic of the bottom and/or there was any writing?
The bigger ones are for that.
This is tiny. It would hold... dry amount of something like chocolate chips... definitely under a cup. 3/4 cup maybe.
No writing, plain bottom.
I could be completely imagining it, but as a child in the 80's I am picturing this filled with those little "dainty mints" (pastel colored soft mints) sitting on a counter by the register next to one of those toothpick dispensers where you rotate the little drum at the bottom and it dispenses one at a time.
“It’s said war—war never changes. Men do, through the roads they walk. And this road—has reached its end.”
Nancy Reading
steward and tree herder
Posts: 8877
Location: Isle of Skye, Scotland. Nearly 70 inches rain a year
If it was on tables at a truckstop, could it have held savory snacks with toothpicks (or larger spiky things). I'm thinking olives, or cocktail sausages, not sure what would have been food to nibble on while your order was being prepared...might be handy for storing buttons or beads now (after a wash!)
If it's a mammal, I'm way off, but there are only so many critters that are limited to certain areas with the Isle of Sky being one of them ...
There is nothing so bad that politics cannot make it worse. - Thomas Sowell
Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom. - Albert Einstein
Nancy Reading wrote:I'm thinking not. Maybe my chicken reference was misleading you. I think these dinosaurs didn't fly.
Many people who keep chickens refer to them, in loving ways, as being "little velociraptors", "tiny raptors", "mini-Rexes", and other terms of endearment.
"Teeny dinosaurs" is another loving term applied to all poultry and domesticated birds.
I have referred to my geese as "my small hadrosaurs" in reference to their supposed long lost kin in the various duck-billed dinos.
Many people refer to all kinds of assorted "herptiles" as being dinosaur kin.
Your dino footprint doesn't look to be webbed, even as it's for a biped. While it'd be fun to tease about having ostriches running around on The Isle of Sky, I figure your mystery critter is probably one of the many ornithomimids or therapods that ran around, like ostriches still do. Bipeds, but not one of the more commonly looked for critters, they ran around a lot!
There is nothing so bad that politics cannot make it worse. - Thomas Sowell
Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom. - Albert Einstein
Nancy Reading
steward and tree herder
Posts: 8877
Location: Isle of Skye, Scotland. Nearly 70 inches rain a year
Kristine - You win an apple!
The footprints are believed to be a smaller relative of Tyrannosaurus Rex. Some of the footprints they have found locally are from babies that are as small as chicken footprints.
edited to add:
Tread lightly because your footprints could last 170 million years!
Thank you for the excuse to do some quick research that brought me up to speed on the silliness that's taking place (still, but new silly) around T. rex et al.
I learned that there's a current argument about how many actual species might be in the Tyrannosaurus family - up from one to a potential 3 or 4, depending on how things go with the claim that the skeleton of a raptor found in Mongolia may or may not be some kinds of really small Tyrannosaurus. You can always count on paleontologists to keep things interesting!
I hope your local large predators are of a more modern size.
There is nothing so bad that politics cannot make it worse. - Thomas Sowell
Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom. - Albert Einstein
Saw this thing on a trail I was hiking in Central Oregon. The hike report called it an 'odd contraption' and we can't decide what it might be. The rectangular piece on the right side of the arch is a brush, and there was another on the ground, which must have come from the other side. We thought some kind of thing to brush off cattle going in/out. Anyone know?
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