🔎 UNIDENTIFIED Help me ID this item 🤠

[CivilWarFan]

Need help identifying this item. Never seen one like it before. Has a patent date of August 13th, 1861. Anyone seen something like this before?

 

[DizzyDigger]

Wow...that’s an odd item. Looks like some type of moth, with hooks.

As for the patent date, I can find nothing entered on that date that matches
your item.

 

[russau]

I put my guess on your other post.

 

[Red-Coat]

Interesting little item. It’s a ‘work holder’, and the patent was granted to Charles A. Shaw. I have enlarged the drawing from the patent below because the original illustration was tiny.

Like many early patent applications, the text was hand written but reads (in part): “Be it known that I, Chas. A Shaw of Biddeford in the County of York and the state of Maine, have invented or produced a new and original design for a work holder… and consists in placing upon the wire frame work of the work holder a metallic top piece struck up by a die in the form of a honey bee, so arranged upon the holder as to make the bee appear to be holding the work holder by means of its forward legs.”

It’s a design patent not a utility patent, so at no point does it say what the functional purpose might be… only the actual design is described, not the functionality. Shaw was co-owner of a large sewing machine company (Shaw & Clark) and I guess it’s an accessory related to the needs of sewers to keep fabrics taut and aligned when running them through the machine.

 

[Florida Finder]

Awesome detective work!

 

[Digger54]

Awesome detective work!

Beat me to it. You did good Red-Coat!