Featured What is it and what does it do?

I found this in a boxlot from an auction. I have not a clue to what this is or what it is used for. I looks like it slid into a compartment and it has these flip up levers. I know it's not worth anything, but I just want to know what the heck it is. Thanks

 

film splicer

 

Welcome deangreen. Suspect you will get good info soon. I just like gizmos without having the knowledge to ID this one. I'm curious about the object so securely attached by cord, effectively a key by being a tool custom made for this item? Can you see any way it might be used? Wondering if there was not another detachable part that required that saw-toothed thing. Will be interested in what the others come up with.

Edit: Kronos popped in while I was typing. The answers begin to come.

 

that's what it looks like to me too...

 

Yes, a film-splicer (as Kronos said). When one's home movie film breaks (for those of you who remember home movies on film) the levers square off the broken ends and hold them as glue is applied. Compare

 

Wow! That was fast. Mystery solved thanks to the forum folks! This may even come in handy since of have a box of old home movies that need to be fixed.

 

OK guys, is the thing I thought was a tool a blade?

 

i'd say a screwdriver...but wdik.

 

Could the teeth be sprockets & the purpose to get the film ends perfectly aligned?

 

We had a film splicer too. Along with the Bell & Howell Projector.

 

Yes.

 

Could be, though the splicers I remember had built-in sprockets to align the film.
I recall some folks using a small knife to remove emulsion from the area to be glued, or my splicer had a built-in scraper to do that. This tool could have been used for that, or to clear any glue residue from the film sprockets after gluing; I don't specifically recall using such a tool though.

 

This strikes me as a professional quality contraption. As Dean observes, it was made to slide in & out like a drawer, so I see it as having been a component in a whole work station. The cord on the little gizmo looks the right length to reach where it needs to. In komokwa's words, wdik.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Keystone-R...icer-Case-Very-clean-Bronze-1953/172727835033

 

Indeed, as Kronos said. I recall projectors that had a splicer attached. And the splicers I recall were quite well-made, and would seem like professional quality, to modern folks used to so much plastic. But splicers were common in the era of home movies, and this size film was likely used for home movies - professional film would have been considerably wider.

 

I have a number of them. One is quite small.

 

I remember sitting through a lot of home movies; my Mom had an 8 mm camera, I think it was. She'd splice the short films into longer ones, and they'd break and have to be re-spliced. My gosh those films were boring.......

 

Usually but now they’re kitschy and historical with what’s in the film around the ‘stars’.