If you see something weird , do you ever stop to take a photo?
If not, you really should. While you may have no idea what the object is, there’s a good chance that someone on the r/whatisthisthing subreddit knows exactly what it is. They have an incredible track record of identifying all kinds of odds and ends. All you have to do is take a photo and ask ’em.
“What is this / used for? Found in an old house we just moved into. It’s in the kitchen in an old English house up in the Midlands UK.”
This maze of dowels is actually a useful storage area for cookie sheets, baking pans and stuff like that.
“Small white box under the dash in my classic car. Not OEM. Has a white and a red wire going off somewhere.”
OP correctly noted that this was an aftermarket addition to the car. For cars that don’t have indicators to show when the headlights are on and off, one of these little buzzers can do the job.
“Wooden board with rope, pegs and holes.”
Here’s something very familiar to practitioners of certain martial arts. It’s a makiwara board — essentially a wooden dummy for practicing wing chun, kung fu, and some types of karate. Bruce Lee used something similar.
“Wooden whittled log thing in a lake house. Just a whittling project, or an actual thing?”
Is this an actual thing, or not an actual thing? It’s an actual thing! In this case, it’s a wooden mallet for splitting logs.
“Large (about 8′ long) metal thing washed up on the beach at Reyes Point, CA.”
OP guessed that this might be some sort of old engine, and they were bang on. To be specific, it’s the triple-expansion steam engine from a vessel known as the SS Pomo.
“Large bricks set in alternating pattern in the cement on the side of a highway.”
It might look like the beginning of a construction project, but this project is actually already done. The bricks are set there to slow down the flow of water in the event of a flood.
“A friend bought this at a charity shop in Greece. About an inch long, made of light, hollow sounding steel?”
This is, simply put, an aspergillum. What’s an aspergillum? It’s a little hand-held sprinkler for dispensing holy water in religious ceremonies.
“Tiny spoon found in my garden, what is its purpose?”
This is an accessory that was once very common. It became more illicit as time went on. It’s a spoon for snorting small quantities of snuff, or small quantities of…other stuff.
“3 inch black plastic piece with ball bearings and very greasy, found on bedroom floor.”
If you’ve put together Ikea furniture in the past, you might have already identified this as the sliding mechanism for a drawer — in other words, the thing that allows drawers to slide smoothly.
“Found this while renovating. The middle is not very stiff, the length of the handles can be opened and closed and somewhat adjusted in length.”
Let’s double down on the Ikea content with this one. While it looks a bit like a tote for carrying firewood, it’s actually part of an Ikea wall organizer .
“Found this digging out my patio in New Jersey. about 6 inches below the grass. I don’t have septic tank, house is over a hundred years old. Can I break it up with a sledgehammer?”
To cut the suspense: you can probably break this with a sledgehammer. It seems to be a sturdy anchor for a clothes line.
“From antique store junk drawer it came in a small tin with a slip of paper that says ‘German Inventors Fair 1953.'”
This thing was pretty familiar to several posters. It appears to be a resealable tap for pouring liquid out of cans.
“This is a socket in my 1949 house. What is it? And can I cut it safely?”
Modern phone jacks may seem like an ancient, unchanging design, but they’re actually streamlined versions of the original. If you’re wondering what old phone jacks looked like, here you go.
“Hard, round, white sphere with “hot or cold” words & pictures.”
I thought this was some kind of mini barometer or something, but it’s just novelty candy. It’s from a Mentos (the Freshmaker, don’tcha know) limited edition set known as ‘This or That.’
“Tiny pellets (maybe wood ?) found on couch.”
Oftentimes when you find something suspicious like this, it’s evidence of some kind of infestation. In this case, it appears that OP is unfortunately dealing with termites, because that stuff is termite poop.
“Just purchased a home built in 1938. This kitchen counter is shorter than the others, and has this metal insert built in. It feels thin, like maybe ice was kept underneath to keep items on top cool?”
Here’s an old-fashioned kitchen feature that’s since fallen out of style. The flat surface is for kneading bread, the other part is for portioning dough, and there’s a spot underneath for storing ingredients.
“Pulled the pan on my transmission to clean the magnet, and found hundreds to thousands of these little (<0.3mm) steel beads, stuck to the magnet."
It isn’t every day that someone is able to successfully identify hundreds of thousands of an object, but that’s the case here. These things are steel shot, uh, peen. It’s from the manufacturing process.
“Found this floppy rubber thing at the bottom of my new dishwasher after using it for the first time. Do we think it is important?”
Is this important? Maybe. Is it important to the dishwasher? Not at all. It’s just a straw that came detached from a sippy cup.
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“Black/yellow, large looking bomb shaped item, found 30 mins outside Halifax, NS.”
If it looks like a bomb, it’s probably a bomb. But this isn’t a bomb at all. OP looked into it and found that it was a 30-year-old weather buoy that washed or was dumped ashore.
“Microphone shaped object with transparent globe spotted on the London Underground, what is it?”
Sometimes, the most intriguing-looking items turn out to be the most pedestrian. In this case, the object is nothing more than a kids’ toy. Spin it around and it lights up, simple as that.
