Monday Mystery Artifact

...over on AnnArbor.com. Take your best guess! See if you can figure out the term best sooted to this item.

Monday Mystery Artifact

Last week's winner and this week's stumper may be found here at AnnArbor.com. Good luck!

Monday Mystery Artifact

Take your best guess over at AnnArbor.com!

Mystery Artifact Update

Kind readers may remember that the Oct. 5 Mystery Artifact a week ago was a lamplighter, and that I said at the time that I wasn't sure whether it was used in one's home or used by a street lamplighter. I've just found a bit of information, in a 1931 cartoon in the Ypsilanti Daily Press, that shows this item being used as the latter. Just for fun, here's the cartoon and a close-up of the lamplighter.

Monday Mystery Artifact

Easy one this week--let's see who nabs it first!

Monday Mystery Artifact

Are you up for a challenge? See if you can guess this week's Monday Mystery Artifact on AnnArbor.com!

Monday Mystery Artifact

This week we've got a tricky one--something that, unlike last week's wooden darning egg, is really not used at all anymore. Take a peek, and your best guess!

Mystery Artifact bonus: Unemployed "metal detectorist," after being jeered at by countrymen ("Beep beep, he's after pennies!") finds hoard of priceless 7th-century Mystery Artifacts with his trusty Metal Detector, not unlike Dusty D's own!

Monday Mystery Artifact

Like to try your luck at this week's Monday Mystery Artifact? Take a peek and a guess right here!

Monday Mystery Artifact

Trickier than last week! See if you can guess this obscure artifact!

Monday Mystery Artifact

on AnnArbor.com--a firestarter and a mysterious tool! You can check it out here. Happy Labor Day!

Monday Mystery Artifact on AnnArbor.com

We had 2 winners this week, erksnerks and Larissa! Today's new Mystery Artifact is posted; see if you can guess!

Monday Mystery Artifact on AnnArbor.com

Howdy historical peeps. Please allow me to apologize to you for not updating this weekend; our Internet went down. Dusty D's brainiac sweetie figgered out that it was the transformer thingie-box with the pluggie doodads...as Dusty D stood by, slackjawed. Anyways, he fixed 'er up in record time and we're back in business. Odd that the transformer blew out...hmm, makes me think of arc lights and Tesla and all sorts of neato electrical topics--I should scurry off to my files to find an electrifying story for y'all. In the meantime, here is the Monday Mystery Artifact--good luck!

Mystery Artifact Update

The long-lost Mystery Artifact has finally returned, from an unauthorized leave of absence. BAD MYSTERY ARTIFACT! At any rate, this was the object:

...and we DID have a winner, Lisele! She guessed, "I'm gonna call this a work light or task light. Looks like you pound that pointy end into the wall to provide a temporary light while you work on some project. Then you pull it out again with the loop end. Analogous to the caged task light hanging above my sewing machine in the basement."

That's exactly correct. In my ever-useful 1902 Sears, Roebuck catalog, I found one for sale. It's called a "Miner's Candlestick," but in a catalog sent out to an agrarian society, I'm confident that this was used on farms for early morning milking and other tasks where folks would need what is a period flashlight. Congratulations, Lisele!

Mystery Artifact has been naughty lately, so Dusty D is making a change. I'm consolidating our 2 weekly Mystery Artifacts into 1 and will publish them in both here and on annarbor.com out of consideration for folks who don't want to go to annarbor.com & register & all. That should make things easier for readers and easier for me to rein things in a bit. Thanks for your patience!

Monday Mystery Artifact on AnnArbor.com...

...see if you can guess! It's here.

Monday Mystery Artifact

Last week's Mystery Artifact was a toughie, I'll admit. It was hard because, instead of an artifact you might have recalled from your grandmother's house, the mystery was a specialized job. This job was done at the various hydro-powered mills around town, such as the Peninsular Paper Mill. The mill in the photo was one belonging to Henry Ford.

This man is "clearing the rake." The rake is the series of wooden slats he's standing on--a wooden grill or comb that kept branches and trash out of the water stream providing power for the mill, so the machinery wouldn't get all clogged up. In the summer, this man would be clearing branches and storm-washed waste out of the rake. In the winter, he would be chipping ice off the rake.

One former Ypsilantian died this way, when he slipped off the icy Peninsular Paper Mill rake into the freezing Huron.

Let's hope this week's Mystery Artifact is easier! Take a peek at this doodad and see if you can guess what it is! It has a modern-day analog, so it's still around--just in a different form. Good luck!

New Monday Mystery Artifact on AnnArbor.com

If you'd like to guess, please do! It's here.

Mystery Artifact Update

My apologies if you looked for Friday's Mystery Artifact--I have one, cued to go on Mondays from now on, same as the (different, take a peek at that one too if you like) Mystery Artifact that I do for AnnArbor.com on Mondays. I figured that saves time for readers who enjoy M.A. and would like to look at both. So tune in next Mon for a double M.A.

Mystery Artifact in AA News: You're Invited to Guess!

Howdy peeps,

Every Monday I do a Mystery Artifact for AnnArbor.com. Today's just went up. Now, the folks here have an advantage in guessing--you have honed your skills on many a previous Mystery Artifact, you know the kinds of things I pick, and so on. So traipse on over there if y'like and school those folks on how to demystify Mystery Artifacts!

It's a new one, never posted on the blog. I can assure you that between this blog and AnnArbor.com, I'm a-hoppin' all over this county, scouring our every last cobwebby corner for Mystery Artifacts! There's only so many of them, y'know! Sooner or later I'm gonna run out! So while they last, have some fun over at AnnArbor.com. Link to Mystery Artifact.

Mystery Artifact: Corn Husker

Sandy D. correctly guessed that last week's Mystery Artifact is a corn husker! Yay!

You can see it here in the 1902 Sears Catalog. It's the sixth glove down, just one of the many models of corn husking gloves offered.

They're sold singly, in pairs, and in lots. So it's reasonable to deduce that people wore these on one or both hands. Holding the dried corncob in one hand, they gripped it with their other hand, and rasped off the hard dry kernels.

There's also a big box-style crank corn husker at the Museum which did the job in a fraction of the time. Either the glove was used by poorer farmers who couldn't afford the box husker, or the gloves were used in conjunction with it, to clean off any cobs the machine did not fully strip. The metal ridge in the palm side of our glove forced off the kernels.

This week's Mystery Artifact appears in a photo. What, pray, is this man doing?

At one time it was done all over town, and was an important job. But what is it? Do you recognize this action?

Take your best guess and good luck!

Answer, and a New Mystery Artifact, next Friday night!

Friday Night = Mystery Artifact Night! See if you can guess it!

We had a winner last week! Thomas correctly guessed that this cumbersome machine was a hand-operated, non-electric vacuum cleaner! Yay!

I should say a Pneumatic Cleaner, as they were known, made by Regina. Regina is still in business a century after this vacuum was made--the company started out with music boxes. Dusty D is a tad unclear as to how they made the jump from music boxes to pneumatic cleaners, but no matter.

One or two people operated this machine. Your helper pumped the handle while you swept, or you pumped AND swept...after heaving this hefty metal device onto the carpet. Dusty D is tired just thinking about it.


The 1910 ad at far left shows the electric version (top) and the hand-pump version of their cleaners. The 1911 ad at right extols the cleaner.

Now. It's time for this week's challenge. It's a leather object that fits over one's index finger and thumb and straps around your wrist. There is a metal bar attached to the area of the first row of finger joints just above your palm. This bar is curved, like a long canoe. Metal studs line the top of the item, along the left side of your right index finger and the inside curve of your thumb. Take a peek and a guess! Answer and new Mystery Artifact posted next Friday night!