Hidden treasures and stories from our collection
Collection of the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney. 86/741. Gift of the State Rail Authority Archives, 1986.
Would you have guessed the mystery rail object on display in the Museum’s marquee at Steamfest this year? Visitors to this event held in Maitland, NSW, over the weekend of 28/29th April were encouraged to have a go.
Photography © Powerhouse Museum, all rights reserved
Would you have guessed the mystery rail object on display in the Museum’s marquee at Steamfest this year? Visitors to this event held in Maitland over the weekend of 9/10th April were encouraged to have a go. Congratulations to Ray Hare of Tamworth, NSW, whose answer, a railway carriage ceiling ventilator cover for NSWGR electric Bradfield cars, was the first correct entry drawn.
This pressed metal blank or moulding for an interior railway carriage ventilator was made by Tullochs Limited in Sydney in about 1950. Tullochs built electric railway carriages based on Dr J.C.C. Bradfield’s wide body, all-steel electric carriages in service on Sydney’s electric rail system from 1926 and known affectionately as the “red rattlers”. As well as conceiving Sydney’s electric train network and the city underground Bradfield is also famous for designing our Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Collection: Powerhouse Museum
Is it a:
a) machine for making gear wheels for clocks
b) machine for cleaning knives
c) portable darkroom for developing rolls of film
d) portable agitator-type washing machine
Collection: Powerhouse Museum
This week’s mystery object is one of my favourite objects from our collection. It is about 10cm in diameter and quite solid.
Is it…?
a) a hairball from the stomach of a bull
b) an early golfball carved from stone
c) a fossilised coconut
d) an early croquet ball made from resin
The answer will be posted on Friday! Happy guessing!
Collection: Powerhouse Museum
This week’s mystery object has a 25 cm steel shaft and a wooden handle on one end.
Is it?
a) a device for removing tulip bulbs from the ground
b) a device to remove teeth
c) a key to a safety box (circa 1800s)
Give it your best shot in the comments!
ANSWER:
the Answer is b) a device to remove teeth!
The object is a ‘toothkey’, which would have been used by your friendly local blacksmith to pull out your rotten teeth. Just keep that in mind next time you are at the dentist!
Photography Powerhouse Museum © all rights reserved
It’s only fitting that during National Archaeology Week we should have, as our mystery object, an actual archaeological find. This artefact is made of kaolin and it measures 36mm length x 20mm width. A small hole runs all the way through it. It has only just been acquired into the Museum’s collection and it will be on display at the Signal Station (Sydney Observatory) over the weekend of 29-30th May.
*Hint* It will help if you read my earlier post here. Also, the orientation of the artefact in this particular image is not necessarily the orientation when it is used.
Is it part of a…?
a) stove lighter
b) smoking pipe
c) oil lamp
d) gunpowder storage case
e) tool for shaping gunflints
All will be revealed next week!
Collection: Powerhouse Museum
In response to Jacqui’s winning suggestion from our 1st birthday competition, we’ve put together our first multiple choice mystery object post!
The object above is made of solid boxwood with a metal end and measures 44mm in height x 35mm in diameter. Is it…?
a) Part of a lace bobbin
b) Handle from a walking stick
c) Spinning top
d) Door knob
e) Decorative carving
Answer: (c) Spinning top
Collection: Powerhouse Museum
This intriguing little object found its way into a curator’s hands this week.
It appears to be some kind of clamp, you twist the gripped handle and the head of it opens. The other handle swings freely around the head.
Give us your best guess readers, because we are stumped!
Tooth clamp?
Jewellery clamp?
Collection, Powerhouse Museum
Now that we have solved the Earoscope, it’s time for a new mystery object!
What you see above is part of a new acquisition from the Enoch Taylor & Co shoe archive.
From 1851-1970s, Enoch Taylor & Co specialised in the importation and manufacture of men’s, women’s and children’s shoes, first in Melbourne and then Sydney. From the 1970s they were exclusively producing boots and heavy duty footwear, including the T-Boot, at their Sydney warehouses. The company was managed by the Lee family from 1926-2004 and today it continues to operate in the hands of new owners.
The acquisition includes accounts ledgers, letterbooks, trademark certificates, photographs and shoes (both the finished product and those showing the different stages of shoe production), as well as this peculiar object.
Collection, Powerhouse Museum
So, what is it…?
Well, there are six separate metal pieces (five are made of brass) attached by a removable hinge and each piece is inscribed, as follows:
1. ‘ARMY STANDARD’
2. ‘3. 25. 40.’ on one side and ‘1 / 8’ and ‘86’ on the other
3. ‘3. 25. 40.’ on one side and ‘1 / 9’ and ‘STD’ on the other
4. ‘3. 25. 40’ on one side and ‘1 / 12’ and ‘STD’ on the other
5. ‘3. 25. 40’ on one side and ‘2 / 32’ and ‘STD’ on the other
6. ‘3. 25. 40’ on one side and ‘3 / 32’ and ‘STD’ on the other
The positioning of the grooves at the end of each metal piece is slightly different, which makes us think that this was possibly a gauge used for measuring the thickness of some part of a shoe, possibly the sole or leather used in the vamp or tongue? But, why would anyone need to know this?
Collection, Powerhouse Museum
Perhaps the inscription ‘ARMY STANDARD’ has something to do with it? This suggests that the object may have, in fact, been used as a device for ensuring that the strict army specifications placed on army boots were met, but what exactly were these specifications and how should we interpret those inscribed numbers mentioned above?
Has anyone seen anything like this before? I know of similar gauges to this used in the automotive industry, but have been unable to find examples for shoes. It’s over to you…
Earoscope. Collection, Powerhouse Museum
The curatorial team here at the Museum are the keepers to an immense amount of knowledge, covering a wide variety of special areas. If you have a question, chances are someone here can write you a novel on the subject.
But… I will let you in on a little secret. We don’t know everything about everything!
Which brings me to my mystery object for the week.
The above device was acquired by the Museum in 1987 and is labelled as an ‘Earoscope’, made in 1893. A few of us here have attempted to research it and have come up short. The stamp on it reads “Earoscope, Patent, WASH.AP.4.1893”, which has not helped me in any American, British, or Australian patent databases.
We found just two mentions of it on the web, one here on the CAN network, and another on the CAN network from the Toowoomba Hospital Museum, who are also looking for information on their earoscope:
“Patrick writes… “The patient in the 1930s suffered a traumatic skull fracture and was admitted to our hospital with an ear-full of blood. He went home a week later and was given the earoscope presumably to suck any remaining discharge. I am intrigued about the little patent needle which moves up and down as the handle is turned. How does it all work? The top part is now firmly stuck on ? rusted.”
Which sheds some light, but is this really how it was used?
We cannot open our earoscope to see inside, but as you can see it has a clamp, a handle, and a rubber coated metal tube out the top.
Why would you have to clamp this device onto something?
Can you really use it to suck blood from your ear?
Has anyone ever seen one or used one?
Anyone want to have a guess at what else it was used for? bonus points if you come up with something imaginative and wacky!
UPDATE
Thanks to helpful reader Ben (see comments) we may have a lead on our mystery object! he found this advertisment in ‘The Advertiser’, wednesday 1 March 1911.
I hope they are talking about the same device! Maybe our earoscope made a sound when the handle was turned?
I’m off to follow up this new lead!
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