I have no idea what it is, the sale people had no idea, so I gave them a dollar for it because it goes nice in my 19'th century house.

I know it's Italian, but it doesn't have Fruhgeelay on it anywhere.

Looked up the address and it shows a small art district in Siena, Italy.

Looks like bookends, to me. Turn it so the flat part is down and stand up books between the hinged pieces. Does the right-side one slide to adjust for the number of books?

Yes, it adjusts outwards.

Everyone's guess it is an adjustable bookends.

A little modification and it might make a nice paper towel holder.

Bookends would be my guess. That's one hell of a deal for $1.00!

It's the nicest whatever-that-is I've ever seen. . .

I just looked up antique bookends up on ebay.

Yep, that is what it seems to be.

In Tabitha's library it goes.

That's pretty neat. Check to see it's not worth $10k before you use it, you don't always know about those things.

I made a similar project for my 8th grade woodshop class back in the 50's or so so!
Mine had a finish that was a little less!

I was gonna go with paper towel holder.

quote:

Originally posted by wrightd:
Check to see it's not worth $10k before you use it, you don't always know about those things.

100% true story from about 4 or 5 years ago.
Co worker got an old print in an old frame in a box of junk at an estate sale. He took photos and started to research it as he found time, he told his wife just to set it aside until he found out if it was just junk or not.

A couple weeks later he found out it was a rare numbered print worth ~20K! (at least the last one that sold brought that)
Yea... jackpot. NOT.
His wife had already sold, and shipped it, on ebay... for ~$10 bucks.

To say he was pissed doesn't even come close...

A rare 16th century paper towel holder.

DaVinci's slide rule.

Collapsing ear protection for a person with a flat head

I've seen very plain versions of these in old amish farm homes.

They had theirs hung in the entry way or mud room .

they fold flat against the wall until guests come and then the guest will unfold a wing to hang a hat or light jacket on.


also you might check the Shaker or Quaker sites,

they had dining halls with very long tables,
when the hall was not in use , it was very common to hang the individual chairs on the wall.

some used a dual set of pegs as hooks and others used these
( think 1700's )

Cool! You got a thing!

in the first few months of commercial air travel , none of the passenger seats were uniform.

When purchasing tickets to fly , the ticket person would ask the perspective passenger to back in to the board , and then the would fold the wings in to see if the passengers ass would actually get in between the arm rests.

of course , back then people were a lot smaller , 99% of the people passed the test

A 13th century model Redwing foot measuring gauge?

Yeah, it's a display stand for a couple of .50 cal ammo cans.