help me identify this doohickey?

[KittyT]

Not sure if this is the right forum for this... bartenders, feel free to move this thread to whichever forum is the most appropriate!

I stayed in a hideous Super 8 Motel in East Hartford, CT this weekend for a hot rod show. Now, the place was awful, but they had tried really hard to jazz it up with random old stuff. There was a display case full of random old objects, and I'd never seen anything like this. I have no idea what it is or would have been used for. Can anyone help me out?

 

[Miss_Bella_Hell]

Are those numbers on the dial there? Looks like a label maker or something. [huh] Or a scale?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Looks to me like either a checkwriting machine or some kind of sequential numbering device. I've seen gizmos like this myself while junkshopping, but I've never paused to take a closer look.

 

[Matt Noir]

It is quite obvious that this is a flux capacitor.

 

[Fatdutchman]

Great Scott!

 

[RIOT]

A 1920's telex machine

Edit. - After close observation, it does have some kind of stamping handle at the top, if I could retract, I would say it is some kind of engraving tool.

 

[Cobden]

It looks like an early sort of Dyno-tape machine to me

 

[Leading Edge]

The way the even numbering sequence skips on the elliptical dial makes me pretty sure it is a thingamajiggy

. . . but it could be a flux capacitor.

 

[Benny Holiday]

It is quite obvious that this is a flux capacitor.

Cool! Can we hi-jack it and use it to take us all back to 1938 for some major shopping expeditions?

 

[Starius]

I'm not discounting the possibility that this device is somehow used in time travel, but it seems to me its way more H.G. Wells than it is Doc Brown.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

It looks like an early sort of Dyno-tape machine to me

That was my first impression also. It appears to have a slot which some kind of tape runs through. But the 3 digit numbers on the visible dial all seem to end in 9s. 109, 119, 129, etc.
Maybe it's some sort of mechanical calculator with a tape print out? A bomb sight?? [huh] I dunno,....

 

[Barry]

Antique check protector (as Lizzie mentioned)... Looks somewhat similar to the device that's pictured second from the top (on the right).

http://www.officemuseum.com/check_protector_gallery_1900-1920.htm

 

[ScionPI2005]

I'm not discounting the possibility that this device is somehow used in time travel, but it seems to me its way more H.G. Wells than it is Doc Brown.

Agreed.

 

[Story]

It is quite obvious that this is a flux capacitor.

We are not in the Eighth dimension, we are over New Jersey. Hope is not lost.

 

[Phil]

Well it's quite obviously a dohikeymabobascope.

 

[happyfilmluvguy]

Antique check protector (as Lizzie mentioned)... Looks somewhat similar to the device that's pictured second from the top (on the right).

http://www.officemuseum.com/check_protector_gallery_1900-1920.htm

Somewhat? That looks exactly like what Kitty has. It looks heavy, though

It's obvious someone else has found a flux capacitor. It must be destroyed.