What Is It? Game 114

W00t! It's time for our collaboration with the always awesome What is it? Blog. This week's entry is this strange looking object to the left: can you guess what it is?

Two prizes this week: the first person to guess correctly and the funniest (but ultimately wrong) guess will win a T-shirt from the Neatorama Shop.

Contest rules are darned easy: place your guess in the comment below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you'd like. Post no URL or web links - let others play (doing so will forfeit your entry).

For more clues, check out the What is it? Blog. Good luck!

Update 11/6/09 - the answer is:An exercise club, the 1897 patent says it was "for the purpose of testing the strength of the wrist and forearm", additional weights could be attached to the bottom of it, patent number 578,230. Commonly known as Indian clubs, these can be found in a wide variety of sizes and weights.

Congratulations to Mr. Weaver who got it right first and to huh? for the um, very funny entry that I won't repeat here. :)

Not a sock darner with that handle; I remember my Grandmother using one. More likely some type of early machine like a butter churn or primative Veg-O-Matic.
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19th Century bowling pin. Victorian-era bowling alleys did not have automatic pin setters. The pins were picked up and repositioned by under-fed orphaned waifs . The handles atop the pins helped the tiny orphans reset the pins quickly so they could scurry out the path of on-coming bowling balls.
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an early submarine model with periscope. They knew bottles floated, so decided to put a periscope in it, but turns out bottles don't like to stay upright. really sucked for the test pilot.
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It looks like a tiny lamp- but it's a lamp used in the home of a blind person. That way, things look right to sighted people, but the blind person doesn't accidentally burn themselves on a real lamp.
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Dr. Amazing's Wrinkle Remover! Combined with our tonic water, this amazing product will remove any and all signs of aging. Two doses daily, immediately followed by rubbing our patented remover across all wrinkled skin surfaces will leave you looking, and feeling, young again! It's like an iron for your skin! But don't worry, it won't burn! *insert cheesy grin*
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Looks to me like a pin from an old bowling game I have seen where the pins aren't knocked down, but rather attached to a pivot point above them. When the pin is hit, it retracts into the ceiling and is released back down (reset) for the next turn.
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That's used at fish farms, the first person uses it to make holes in the water, then the second person plants one fish egg in each hole. Someone else comes behind the egg-planters with a hose to fill in the holes. It's a very efficient system.
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It's an old-fashioned stand mixer (hey, didn't I guess that already?). I presume that you pour what needs to be mixed through the hole near the top, and after pumping/turning the handle, you pour out mixture through the same hole.
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the original penis pump.

It required 2 people to operate. The man had the option of having his partner help, which proved to be somewhat of a mood killer. Or, he could have a friend help though when caught, it caused many an awkward situation. Hence many men desperate enough to use one, had a family member help... this reduced the rumors that would go around, but also made the family dinner very uncomfortable.

Shortly afterwards it was redesigned in it's current, "help yourself" format.
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Ok a lot of you went the bowling pin route. You almost had it, EXCEPT that it is for strengthening your hand and arm for a bowling BALL. That is why the handle is so wide. It keeps your fingers at the proper distance during training.
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That's easy. This is a tool used to shape woolen hats. The hatter would place the hat on the pin, and push this into a liquid mercury bath, purging out the moisture from the wool. By the shape of this one, I would think it was used to make a womans' hat, a 1930's style cloche. (The expression "Mad as a hatter" comes from the damage done by exposure to the fumes of mercury. )
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I think it might be an Udder Massager for bovines. How does one get the best milk? Massage it out! Happy cows, better milk! The handle looks like it might have a cow bell on it.
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I'm thinking this tool is used when placing large stickers or other adhesive materials on a flat surface. The rounded, wooden edge is used to smooth out any air holes and allow for a smooth, flawless finish.
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This is a comblestobber, possibly the oddest musical and most dangerous instrument ever devised. When electricity was new it was put to many uses and making 'electric' music was a brief and often fatal fad. The 'combler', while suspended within a rolling ball like metal cage, which would by 'rolled' along a charged grid, would acheive various senthized notes by swinging the charged comblestobber in small curving arcs, without touching, but almost making contact with the cage. Surviving audience members described the experience and 'electrifying.'
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