✅ SOLVED Test your skills on this one! Spent years trying to ID this.

[musclecar]

I found this in Alaska about 10 years ago, and have never been able to ID it. It is an aluminum piece, about 3 inches square. It has 15 teeth and is numbered 1-15. There is a stop preventing it from spinning freely. The back has two tabs that may have been used to mount it. ANY GUESSES?

Thanks,

MC

PS The quarter used for size was found yesterday! 1935S Yeah!

 

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[SODABOTTLEBOB]

I have often wondered about that myself. And the only thing I could think of was maybe optional mounting (nail/screw) holes in the case of a wood/metal design type of cage/box/nest or something along those lines.

Bob

P.S. Good job! You're quite the CG artist. Maybe you could give me some lessons. ??

 

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[Bigcypresshunter]

The next question is, what were these used for?

I could see no markings around those holes to indicate they were ever used..

 

[leakypipes]

I am a retired plumber and similar parts are found in old style water softener time clocks. Many of them count only six days and you need to specify a seven day clock when ordered. Never seen one for fifteen days but who knows.

 

[SODABOTTLEBOB]

~ CHICKEN CHAIN LETTER ~

Regarding the e-mail inquiries I sent out, it appears as if they are being forwarded from one organization to another. The most promising of the lot seems to be in the hands of a retired gentleman by the name of Lou Arrington. Lou is with the American Poultry Historical Society, and it was said, "if anyone knows what the device is, and if it is in fact poultry related, Lou will know". But I have not heard from him yet, and suspect he may just now have received my inquiry. Hopefully I will hear from him tomorrow. As for the others, no one knows what the device is, including the vice president of the Poultry and Egg Institute, which is an affiliate of the U.S. Poultry & Egg Association.

I will let you know if/when I hear more.

Bob

 

[riverrunner814]

A part for a 15 second or minute timer?

 

[SODABOTTLEBOB]

I'm still waiting/hoping to hear from Mr. Arrington, but in re-reading one of the other replies, I discovered this ... (Copy/Pasted)

"No one on our staff is sure if or how widely such devices may have been used in the egg industry in the 1950s."

~ * ~

It's the "If" part I'm wondering about. BigCy alluded to this earlier, (Post # 1217), questioning if these counting devices were ever even used or mass produced. It dosen't "appear" as if they were.

I'll be back!

Bob

 

[SODABOTTLEBOB]

I'm not sure if it is considered appropriate to post this here, but another member said I should. But if anyone objects, please contact me via a PM and I will remove it. Also, as much as I appreciate everyone's concern, please don't feel obligated to contact me. I will just assume, and thank you in advance for it being unanimous.

Briefly; Dad is in the hospital for what the doctor described as "Borderline kidney function." He is doing fairly well considering, and everytime I speak with him on the phone or visit, he always ask ...

"How's the egg thing going?"

I won't mention this subject again until it is behind us.

Thanks again,

Bob

 

[Bramblefind]

Bob~
Sending some good thoughts for your Dad. I hope he is feeling better soon.

Him asking about the egg thing made me smile I hope we can get this figured out for him.

You've made a mighty fine effort with the latest email project.

 

[kyphote]

My best to your Dad. Love how an item so meaningless can conjure so many meaningful memories.

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

.

Briefly; Dad is in the hospital for what the doctor described as "Borderline kidney function." He is doing fairly well considering, and everytime I speak with him on the phone or visit, he always ask ...

"How's the egg thing going?"

Hope your Dad gets well soon.

It seems the American Poultry Historical Society is going out of their way to help.

 

[trikikiwi]

Bob, Thoughts and Prayers for your Dad you let him know his knowledge is acknowledged, as far away as New Zealand

As far as the counter is concerned;

..................................

It's the "If" part I'm wondering about. BigCy alluded to this earlier, (Post # 1217), questioning if these counting devices were ever even used or mass produced. It dosen't "appear" as if they were.
I'll be back!

Bob

That's a funny factor with the counter. It doesn't look like a 'one off' maybe it is and I can drink that bottle of Fine New Zealand Wine
Mike

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

I think it was intended to be mass produced but maybe they only made a thousand and couldnt sell them. Many patented inventions are flops.

When I worked at warehouses, I used to find abandoned boxes full of someones invention that apparently never sold very well. I either sold them at the flea market for whatever I could get or dumped them.

 

[trikikiwi]

I think it was intended to be mass produced but maybe they only made a thousand and couldnt sell them. Many patented inventions are flops.

When I worked at warehouses, I used to find abandoned boxes full of someones invention that apparently never sold very well. I either sold them at the flea market for whatever I could get or dumped them.

I hope you put them on T'Net first BCH
As for the counter.
Either it's lost forever or - somewhere, is a stamping die for making the counter.
Mike

 

[SODABOTTLEBOB]

I thank you, and my father thanks you for the shared thoughts of concern.
It turns out that what they suspected was a kidney condition is a serious ulcer.
Dad is doing better, and hopefully will be home sometime this week.

~ * ~

Regarding my e-mail inquiry to Mr. Arrington, I still haven't heard back from him yet, but I want to believe he is pouring through archives searching for an answer. I just hope he doesn't reply back and say ...

"They never had nothing like that when I was a kid!"

The link below is to more magazine ads than I can count. Not all of them are poultry related, but, as GoodGuy said earlier, "There must be something somewhere!" Who knows? Maybe our little invention is hiding among the ads under a different disguise. Plus the link may help in solving other "What Is It's?"

Regarding the photo, I wonder how many of those gizmo's were sold?
(The chickens in the photo look a little confused. Kind of like me!)

Thanks again to all,

Bob

http://www.gono.com/adart/new/adartcatlist.php?cat_id=8

 

[pronghorn]

Why so many people searching cannot find a similar item is the real mystery to me!

because the item is a broken off piece of something that is no longer made and quite possibly foreign

Is anyone absolutely certain this is a tin snip cut?
I don't buy the idea that the item is a broken off piece of something
else. The saying..."Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Proof"
comes to mind.

If the piece is aluminum, and I believe that is what has been stated,
that little nick could have been caused by someone trying to attach
the item to barb wire, or could have been caused by someone removing
the item from a cage with a pliers or it could have been caused by the finder
scrapping it with a digging tool or a hundred other possibilities. If the piece
is 2 inches wide as I believe has been stated, the little nick looks to be only
about 1/8th of an inch. The edge labeled 3 in the magnification picture
below looks to be straight and not necessarily cut with a tin snips, in my
opinion. I have no proof of this of course.

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

Is anyone absolutely certain this is a tin snip cut?
I don't buy the idea that the item is a broken off piece of something
else. The saying..."Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Proof"
comes to mind.

LOL I respect your opinion but I dont know where you are going with this. I am NOT absolutely certain but under magnification it appears to be broken or cut with tin snips.(1) My GUESS is that it was simply an optional clip-on that may have held the manufacturers markings. The mark left in the metal goes all the way across but was not captured on film and I agree is not obvious in the pic.

My opinion is that this item was NOT encased. I came to this conclusion after unsuccessfully trying to make a cover/casing out of cardboard. The stop tab scraped as it went around, and I found no use for the pointer (3) or the 4 tabs. The tabs were very hard to attach to the cardboard(4). If the extended piece in question was not cut or broken, what do you think the purpose would be for it?(2) In other words, in your opinion why is it even there?

 

[Goodyguy]

Now I am wondering what these holes were for?

 

[SODABOTTLEBOB]

I just happened to be in the neighborhood, and since we're playing "Twenty-Questions," I'm still wondering about the two "golf club shaped" indentations on the back. I'm thinking they were intended to keep the back slightly rasied off of whatever it was mounted to so that the rivet would be free and clear, thus allowing the overall setting of the device to be relatively flat. At first I believed they kept the device from touching the cage wire, but now I'm kind of wondering if it wasn't attached to something like tin? But whatever it was intended to be mounted to, I'm convinced the back of it had to be accessable, otherwise it would have been extremely difficult, (if not impossible), to bend the two top tabs down.

Of course, we can't forget about the bent part where it was "snipped." Maybe that part rested on the top edge of a tin/metal box of some kind, and the tabs were bent down by reaching into the box. So I guess this makes it "22" questions ... ... and counting!

BENDABLEBOB

 

[SODABOTTLEBOB]

~ P.S. ~

This will probably help about as much as a poke in the ribs with a sharp stick ...

But ...

Seeing as how we are all pretty well "Eggucated" by now, and considering the jillions of images and other stuff we have looked at, the only thing "Tin" or "Metal" about the average chicken cage that I can think of is the feeding trough and/or possibly some kind of a nest in the cage itself. Hmmm ... could it have been designed to mount to a feeding trough. Surely not the nest ... ? Maybe we need to take a closer look at them/there chicken cages and see how they are really constructed. We may not know what it is, but I bet we can figure out how it mounts best.

"Chicken Cages" ... anyone?

 

[SODABOTTLEBOB]

Veto part of my last jab in the ribs ...

I did some of that draftsmen stuff in my head, and came to the personal conclusion that whoever manufactured the item would not expect whoever bought it to have to cut slots into whatever it was supposed to be mounted to. How would the person who bought it cut those slots, a drill? I don't think so. Which leads me to believe one of two things ...

1. It was ready to go from the factory and intended to easily mount to something like a wire cage.

or ...

2. It was already attached/mounted to "something" when it came from the factory.



JUSTTHINKINGOUTLOUDBOB