This was given to me at the Last Chance Thrift Store as too dangerous to leave with the other electric appliances. Obviously homade from old lamp cord (the plug is unpolarized), a cigar box, some heavy iron wire for the probes (insulated with duct tape) and the three silver units, which bear no maker's mark other than an "E" in a shield. On the bottom they carry a notation "36 volts DC". And in fact they are standard DC interruptors, adjustable for the voltage required, and will "buzz" at the 9 volts from a battery. But what was the intent or purpose in connecting three of them in series with an AC plug at one end and long iron wire probes at the other?
This is a photo (we may have a better scan anon) of a letter "typed" by a blind woman in 1883. Note that the letters are formed of dots that protrude from the surface of the paper, so that the text could be read by a blind or a sighted person. The woman's great-great-grandson, who owns the letter, is curious as to what machine this was done with. I don't think it was a typewriter in the sense of something with a keyboards and a moving carriage - the spacing is uneven, and it is hard to envision what sort of typewriter could make such protruding dots. If you know anything about the machine this was done on, please contact me.
A sort of ladle, carved of one piece of wood, about 15 inches long and 3.5 inches across the bowl - but note the odd angle of the bowl to the handle, which would make it impossible to dip anything with it.
A pin badge - there is a sharpened wire prong on the back - but it is 3.3 inches in diameter and has an average thickness of about a quarter inch. Apparently solid lead, and weighs 1.25 lbs, so that any fabric it was hung in would rapidly be damaged. It promotes the "Perfection Anti-Friction Metal" of the National Lead Company - but the image is the famous "Dutch Boy" that was used to advertise paint.
A mirror-finish brass bowl with a miniature nautical porthole cover complete with screw-clamps. The overall diamter is about 5 inches. Formed of 1/16-inch brass, in such a way that the outside bottom of the bowl protrudes just fractionally beyond the bottom rim, so the bowl does not sit quite steady on a hard flat surface. No maker's mark.
Iron and brass, sawed off the top of a gate(?) at a cemetery(?) or the Addams Family mansion? The images seem to combine Celtic and Classical elements.