Oriental artefact filter

March 21, 2009 8:44 AM

Asking for a friend who bought this (two pix here) at a yard sale for 50 cents. What is it?

It is approx 7 3/4" square and 1/2" deep, has a magnetic compass in the center and two spirit levels at right angles to each other in one corner.
Comes in a bright red plastic case with flaps and cover. Appears to be made of lacquered wood (red on the front and and black on the back). Red monofilament line crosses and appears to hold the disk.

posted by lungtaworld to Grab Bag (8 answers total)

Looks like a feng shui disk.
posted by zadcat at 8:47 AM on March 21, 2009

It's a Luopan disk or Luopan compass.
posted by gemmy at 8:51 AM on March 21, 2009

FWIW, on the side with chinese characters, the big red ones say "hong kong", the number on the lower right side is a phone number, and the words below it are an address in hong kong. mr. skaye agrees that it's a geomancy disk.
posted by skaye at 9:53 AM on March 21, 2009

Yup.
posted by pointilist at 10:23 AM on March 21, 2009

Its really fricking cool looking, is what it is, great find!
posted by CTORourke at 10:57 AM on March 21, 2009

To me it looks like a portal to another reality, so be careful.
posted by tula at 11:18 AM on March 21, 2009

Thanks to all! My firend is happy :)
posted by lungtaworld at 4:16 PM on March 21, 2009

For the record it's new. Not vintage or antique. That's based on years of evaluating antiques. No more than 20 years old and probably ten or less. Probably worth about 20 dollars.
posted by Muirwylde at 3:29 PM on March 22, 2009