Help identify this mystery object?

March 2, 2007 3:42 PM

MysteryObjectFilter! My friend got this device on ebay. Can anyone help him figure out what it is?

His description: "No markings or manufacturer names. Two dials on the left are Power (on/off) and Power (intensity); the dials on the right are Master (on/off) and Illumination (from dim to bright). When you turn it on and crank up the power, the center piece vibrates a bit. The central disk is plastic and lights up (lightbulb inside). The other two discs are covered in felt, and the inner one lifts up, sort of as if something should be clipped inside. The inner part of that circle has a groove in it, as if perhaps it, too, once had a plastic disc in the middle. Both discs rotate freely if you move the metal bar (which is what clips the two together), and they're mounted on springs inside the case. There's a drawer in the front that contained 8 old phonograph needles (which I suspect are a red herring). What the hell could this possibly be? The plastic thing on the side is clearly an arm rest or sheild of some kind, so that you can... draw something? Carve something? I suspect that it may be from the Lower Jurassic..."

posted by scody to grab bag (18 comments total)

Once this has been identified could you please enlighten me as to why on earth your friend would buy sth on eBay when he has no idea what it is? How did he even find it? "mystery thing"?
posted by ClarissaWAM at 4:03 PM on March 2, 2007

Once this has been identified could you please enlighten me as to why on earth your friend would buy sth on eBay when he has no idea what it is?

Funnily enough, I wouldn't even think to wonder why he'd buy something without knowing what it was... unknown strange things can contain ample delight even when you don't know what they're for, I guess. He's the sort of fellow who has hundreds of weird and wonderful objects all over his apartment, sometimes eventually finding their way into sculptures or other art projects, so I assume he just stumbled upon it in the course of browsing. Anyway, he wrote, "the guy selling it had no idea what it was, but I figured that I could figure it out, and that for the sake of curiosity alone it was worth the thirty bucks."
posted by scody at 4:11 PM on March 2, 2007

Speculating here: A science project and I bet that somewhere out there, an 8 year old and his father know exactly what it is.
posted by lois1950 at 4:13 PM on March 2, 2007

It looks to me like a very small sort of tracing table. You put a sheet with a picture, and then you trace it so the light shows through?
posted by stresstwig at 4:19 PM on March 2, 2007

Hmmm, intersing idea, stresswig. Maybe the vibration helps incise the surface of whatever is being worked with.

I thought maybe it was some sort of sorting device. The vibration helps disburse the thing being sorted, and the light helps identify what is what.
posted by Good Brain at 4:29 PM on March 2, 2007

What is the diameter of the central piece?

Petri dishes commonly come in 60mm and 100mm diameters.
posted by porpoise at 4:31 PM on March 2, 2007

A film editing dealie or slide viewer?
posted by DU at 4:37 PM on March 2, 2007

What is the diameter of the central piece? Petri dishes commonly come in 60mm and 100mm diameters.

Excellent question -- I'll ask him.
posted by scody at 4:40 PM on March 2, 2007

It reminds me of something I saw years ago - I used to work in a TV repair shop, and the owner had something similar (except it didn't have a fluorescent tube, but normal light bulbs on it) - It did something to TV set cathode ray tubes (rejuvenated them or something)
posted by Dub at 4:48 PM on March 2, 2007

It is a negative retouching machine. You use a certain kind of lead pencil and the vibration, which you adjust, creates a kind of smooth lead dust on the negative which when printed creates a smooth looking area.

This is how the old glamour photographers made all the actresses skin look so smooth.

The needles were a way to scratch the negative to create white areas in the print. Or texture.
posted by cda at 5:03 PM on March 2, 2007 [6 favorites]

It's probably some sort of obscure medical device. It doesn't look very practical and when I saw it the first thing I thought was "experimental therapy."
posted by fire&wings at 5:05 PM on March 2, 2007

Yeah some kind of manual petri dish counter is my guess.
posted by scodger at 5:08 PM on March 2, 2007

cda, very impressive. You are exactly correct.
posted by dbiedny at 5:09 PM on March 2, 2007

Yep, cda's got it: it's an old Adams retouching machine. Now to tell my friend. Thanks!
posted by scody at 5:13 PM on March 2, 2007

Here is a more recent version of the same device.
posted by dbiedny at 5:13 PM on March 2, 2007

Wow, that is a very interesting contraption to own. Great question.
posted by fire&wings at 5:40 PM on March 2, 2007

Just wanted to chime in and say this is a kick-ass thread. It's what AskMeFi is all about, in my opinion. Thanks.
posted by Ike_Arumba at 8:04 PM on March 2, 2007

Cool update! My friend is in an experimental band in Chicago, and he reports: "So I wound up using the Adams Negative Retouching Machine at the Haptic concert the other night, along with a couple of oscillators, and it sounded and looked great. I had a contact mic clipped between the felt pieces, which generated a nice rhythmic hum that I could control by increasing and decreasing the volume, and used a telephone mic to pic up the electromagnetic fields that it was generating. Also used some tuning forks... touching them to the felt so that the tone would be picked up by the contact mic."
posted by scody at 12:54 PM on March 6, 2007