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Featured PLEASE HELP ME TO IDENTIFY THIS BOX.

Discussion in 'Antique Discussion' started by laura2212, Feb 6, 2018.

  1. laura2212

    laura2212 New Member

    Please can someone help me identify this box. any information would be greatly appreciated as i have no idea what it was/is used for.

    thank you so much in advance
     

    Attached Files:

  2. clutteredcloset49

    clutteredcloset49 Well-Known Member

    Hi, Welcome to the board.
    Can you go back an click Full Image so your pictures can be seen by those on phones.

    I'm going to ask Davey to move this to Antique Discussion Forum so others might see it.
    @daveydempsey

    All that being said.
    I have discovered Tubingen is a place in Germany. So your box originates there.
    There is a man named Albrecht somehow connected with photo spectrometry, but have no idea how this box would fit.

    upload_2018-2-6_14-59-53.png

    https://books.google.com/books?id=E...#v=onepage&q=e. albrecht tubinger box&f=false

    When I saw the box, all I could think of was the kids trick where the animal shoots out of the box to scare kids.
     
  3. johnnycb09

    johnnycb09 Well-Known Member

    I wonder if it was a base for an automaton?
     
  4. komokwa

    komokwa The Truth is out there...!

    it looks to be missing informative pieces..
     
  5. Bronwen

    Bronwen Well-Known Member

    Greetings Laura, Think we're going to need more as well as larger photos to do a good job of figuring it out. I like Johnny's suggestion. Photo of what I am assuming is the bottom looks like it has key holes for winding, maybe winding 2 separate parts (could there be a music box in there with the mechanism for making something move?) & also one of those regulator things you slide to make the mechanism run slower or faster. What happens when you move the lever?
     
  6. Bronwen

    Bronwen Well-Known Member

    An E. Albrecht wrote the instructions for using the new, improved Hufner spectroscope. In this context, Tubingen appears to be the place of publication in 1892. Think it says 20 page pamphlet for 8 groschen.
     
  7. KingofThings

    KingofThings 'Illiteracy is a terrible thing to waist' - MHH

    Welcome! :)
    As Cluttered asked>>>
    ~
    FULL IMAGE.jpg
     
  8. Bronwen

    Bronwen Well-Known Member

    Until we have something better:

    upload_2018-2-7_10-35-0.png
     
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  9. Bronwen

    Bronwen Well-Known Member

    I was extremely surprised by this.
     
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  10. Bronwen

    Bronwen Well-Known Member

    This was published in 1892. The spectroscope as we know it was not invented until 1940. Whatever this is, it is not a spectroscope as we know it. Albrecht must have been in the same field. What used to be meant by 'spectroscope' & what other contraption might have come along around the same time?
     
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  11. Bronwen

    Bronwen Well-Known Member

    OK, here we go on spectroscopes, not in the least like this box.
     
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  12. Jeff Drum

    Jeff Drum Well-Known Member

    I think the spectroscope is a red herring. Spectroscope is about light, I don't see how it could involve a mechanism like this. So I vote for it being the power unit, separated from the useful part, of an automaton or music box as suggested before.
     
  13. Bronwen

    Bronwen Well-Known Member

    I was just ruling it out. Also, my currently wonky eyes (second cataract surgery next week) have very poor depth perception & I was seeing what I think is a curved opening (?) on the top as a warped handle, so couldn't figure out how the figure would have attached to the mechanism & thought whatever happened had to happen inside. My best shot now is back to my original idea that there is both a music box (out of view in pix provided, just a tiny edge showing) & something that made the figure move, with an option of making it faster or slower & giving the operator the ability to make it face different directions.
     
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  14. komokwa

    komokwa The Truth is out there...!

    Have a quick and smooth recovery ! :)
     
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  15. clutteredcloset49

    clutteredcloset49 Well-Known Member

    I agree, I don't think it has anything to do with spectrometry.
    Albrecht appears to have been a scientist of sorts.

    Do note that the inside of the box is painted black for whatever reason.
     
  16. Bronwen

    Bronwen Well-Known Member

    Thank you. Have had some annoying but not medically serious complications with first eye. Corneal swelling went down, but new Moby floater may be a permanent feature. Still see better with that eye than the other, so really eager to get it done.
     
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  17. Bronwen

    Bronwen Well-Known Member

    Maybe just a cheap, fast & easy way to cover raw wood. Albrecht must be quite a common name. This E. Albrecht could be a different generation of an inventive family or completely unrelated. Or he of the Hufner Spectroscope. :happy:
     
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  18. all_fakes

    all_fakes Well-Known Member

    Perhaps a music-box, missing the figure on the top that would rotate while the music played. The last photo seems to show the case for a mainspring, and the lever looks like something that might be found on a music-box. I don't see a winding key, but perhaps it was of the sort where one turns the figure clockwise to wind, then the figure rotates counter-clockwise while the music plays. Perhaps there are missing parts; I don't see the cylinder one would expect on a music-box. So maybe the automaton suggestion was a good one; a base for a figure (now missing) that rotated, without music.
    I found part of a reference to a Charles Albrecht in association with music-boxes and nickleodeons from 1885, but haven't been able to track it down, due to coming across a virus-infested webpage during the search.
     
    Last edited: Feb 7, 2018
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  19. komokwa

    komokwa The Truth is out there...!

    :yuck::yuck::yuck::nailbiting::nailbiting:
     
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