I get emails all the time from readers wondering about the valueof their items. This week, I’m asking readers to help me identify some items I’ve seen at auction.
I’m not as interested in how much they are worth. I don’t own any of them; I only took photos because I didn’t recognize them and wanted to learn more about them.
I'm not sure what this is or how it was used. It looks like bellows for a fire but this thing is huge. Are those metal handles alongside it on the dolly?
My plan was to research them via eBay or Google and write a blog post, but I never got around to it. And I’ve learned – based on the extensive research that I do for my blog posts about auction items – that I need some idea of what an item is before I can start digging up information about it.
So, here goes. What is it? If you recognize any of these items and know a story behind it, please write and tell me about it in the Comments box below.
Several auction-goers guessed that this was a wine cooler. Were they right?
I don't have a clue on this one. It was tall, so I photographed it in four pieces from top to bottom to up-close in the center.
This looks like a lobster trap. Is it?
I'm guessing that these are old-fashioned water feeders for birds or chickens.
This was obviously handed out to women. The embossing on the handle says "Ekenberg Company Inc. Pancake Flour." I'm still not sure what it was used for.
When I first saw this chair, it reminded me of an electric chair. So I wanted to know if I was correct. I wasn't too far off.
I wrote a blog post about this chair, which I found out was an asylum chair.
The box says nasal douche, so I looked up the words, still unsure about how it was used.
Elvis Presley used a nasal douche to clean out his sinuses with salt and warm water before performances. One of his sold at auction in 2009 for $2,176.
