Help! Can You Identify This Item?

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A number of posts and photographs on our travels, as well as a post on "Writer's Block, Algonquin Hotel, NYC" will come soon.



For now, though, I and the good people at the Talbott Tavern, Bardstown, Kentucky, need your help.

What is this thing?

Comments

AYDIN ÖRSTAN said…
How big was this thing? The way the spikes were distributed makes me thing that when that thing was rotated the spikes did something in sequence. Could it have been part of a player piano or organ?
26 August 2009 at 11:15
Deniz Bevan said…
That was one of the first things I thought of. But you'd think the museum people might have considered that? I wish they'd had a list of the items they'd ruled it out as being...
26 August 2009 at 19:02
NBB said…
I agree, looks like the barrel in a hand organ
27 August 2009 at 05:54
AJ Kandy said…
The barrel diameter is too small, and the spikes too long and thick, for a musical instrument - you wouldn't have a very long sequence of notes, though I did think music box as well. I'm thinking it might be part of the gearing for a mill machine, similar to this: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_h4dZqj4OHI/TXaRnUnmlGI/AAAAAAAAMGM/Cj6FAt__9MM/s1600/mill_machine.jpg which I found here: Days On the Claise - the end gear suggests a connection to a larger driving wheel like a waterwheel (if there was a flowing river nearby?) Could have been used for grinding or pounding ingredients for beer... :)
29 July 2014 at 14:13
Deniz Bevan said…
Good idea! As far as I remember, there is a river - more importantly, the item's in a tavern, so the beer connection certainly makes sense.
30 July 2014 at 13:38
S.P. Bowers said…
Hubby thinks it's some kind of drill or grinder. The spikes are too regular to me musical related.
21 July 2015 at 23:04
Deniz Bevan said…
That makes sense! Maybe part of a farm tool...
25 July 2015 at 04:26
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