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Feb 22, 2024

Mysterious box discovered in Cape Breton attic identified

STORY CONTINUES BELOW THESE SALTWIRE VIDEOS East Coast Food and Drink: Gerrish & Gray Brings Urban Vibe to Downtown Windsor | SaltWire NEW WATERFORD, N.S. — Manpreet Kaur of Sydney is the winner of a

STORY CONTINUES BELOW THESE SALTWIRE VIDEOS

East Coast Food and Drink: Gerrish & Gray Brings Urban Vibe to Downtown Windsor | SaltWire

NEW WATERFORD, N.S. — Manpreet Kaur of Sydney is the winner of a Cape Breton Post contest to identify a mystery item found in a New Waterford attic.

Kaur guessed correctly that it’s a pigeon racing clock.

“My habit of watching 'Hoarders' benefited me,” Kaur said of a popular North American reality TV show where he saw a similar clock.

Can you guess what this item is found in a New Waterford attic?

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There were lots of unique guesses in the contest with clever possibilities for the wood box containing brass fittings.

Among them, Betty O'Neill suggested it was a camera.

Josephine MacDougall said she thought it was a small generator.

“When you crank the handle, you generate power, the faster you crank the greater power it produces,” she suggested.

Don MacCormick was on a bit of a similar wavelength, guessing it was a generator for setting off charges of dynamite.

And Patricia Dietz said her husband Gerard Livingstone also suggested it was a dynamite blasting machine.

John MacKay said he thought it was a foghorn, another good suggestion.

Tommy Bennett also thought it was a record player, and looked like one he used to own.

So did Brian Dean.

“We are music lovers and I build instruments for a living, so the first thought that sprang into my head was that it looks like it could be a player for the most early copper cylinder records. Turn the crank and listen to those early players go,” he suggested.

Wayne Pinhorn’s guess was also original — he thought it was an electrical testing device to check the integrity of wiring in electrical circuits called a Megger.

According to the website, Industrial Alchemy, which specializes in vintage technology, antique pigeon racing clocks is a complicated mechanical device that combines “the functions of a timepiece, printing press, and secure storage facility.”

The intent was to settle bets on pigeon races. “The heart of the device is a rotating brass carousel, which is equipped with an array of small, numbered compartments,” a blog on Industrial Alchemy notes. “When sealed inside of its locked wooden carrying case, only a single compartment can be accessed at a time through a small trapdoor in the top of the device. In operation, a numbered band is removed from the leg of each pigeon as it crosses the finish line and placed into the open compartment. Turning a large T-shaped handle on the top of the clock will retract the current compartment into the device, while simultaneously moving a new compartment into position below the trapdoor and printing the current time onto a paper register inside the clock's sealed wooden case.”

The mechanical clocks have been supplanted in modern times by electronic devices, such as microchips, and GPS rings.

The New Waterford clock is now being used as a doorstop.

Dietz said they bought an antique washing machine and an antique sewing table 40 years ago at an auction and have repurposed them as plant stands.