todays mystery object

[jim1950]

Can someone please tell me what this is? It's been around in different workshop's for year's, it first turned up over 30 year's ago in a chest of draws in for restoration
it keep's heading for the scrap bin but I always think I must find out what it is.

 

[dannyr]

Poss a musical instrument -- ie a Jew's or jaws harp - missing the key spring ---???

 

[John Brown]

Poss a musical instrument -- ie a Jew's or jaws harp - missing the key spring ---???

+1
Although "musical" is questionable..

 

[niall Y]

Would have to agree with @dannyr on this - looks like a "Jews Harp"

 

[jim1950]

Poss a musical instrument -- ie a Jew's or jaws harp - missing the key spring ---???

thank you, just looked that up and I agree

 

[rob1693]

 

[DrPhill]

I think it is a tape measure......

 

[dannyr]

I think it is a tape measure......

che? -how?

not esp my kind of music, but that fella really play the tape measure

 

[Austin Branson]

It looks like a pair of single-handed dividers to me. Used by navigators on ships and boats when charts were paper.

 

[John Brown]

It looks like a pair of single-handed dividers to me. Used by navigators on ships and boats when charts were paper.

Except there's no apparent hinge or pivot point where you'd expect, the legs are blunt and imprecise, and you can see the slot where the spring of a Jew's harp used to be.

 

[selectortone]

Except there's no apparent hinge or pivot point where you'd expect, the legs are blunt and imprecise, and you can see the slot where the spring of a Jew's harp used to be.

But apart from that it looks just like dividers!

 

[the great waldo]

It's obviously a protototype beer bottle opener !!

 

[Adam W.]

It's a roach clip to stop fingers from getting burnt.

Not that I claim to know anything about that kind of popular leisure activity.

 

[the great waldo]

It seems a bit slim for a cockroach holder? stamping on them seems a bit more humane than setting fire to them!

 

[Terry - Somerset]

Probably wrong - but before the development of ring pull technology a lot of canned fish (eg anchovies) was sold with a similar key which engaged a metal tag which was turned to "roll" the top off.