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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Audrey Muzingo, post: 3575954, member: 9508&quot;]EDIT; if anyone could tell me how to make photos upload it would help. None of the photos I&#039;m trying to add is as large as 1 MB but it keeps saying &#039;file is too large.&#039;</p><p>I recently got this object in a mixed lot of small sterling items. I asked the seller what it was and he said he found it in a drawer at his grandparents&#039; house after they both passed away, so he couldn&#039;t ask them. His guess was a needle threader.</p><p>Here I should note: For the sake of continuity, I&#039;ve labeled the parts in the photos. I purposely tried to label them as ambiguously as possible, so as not to suggest a function, only the basic shape (though I think the &#039;handle&#039; is fairly obvious). See photos of the prongs/loop in their ranges of positions, by pivoting the spring on its&#039; rod.</p><p>Okay, so &#039;needle threader&#039; appeared feasible, like if the groove on the back is for holding the needle in place, with the loop clamping it down, all you had to do was aim the thread into the fairly big hole of the cone on the front, which would funnel the thread through the pinhole, and through the needle&#039;s eye.</p><p>But I tested it, and it definitely didn&#039;t work. Even with my shortest needle, the length of needle extending beyond the top of the disk overpowered whatever force the would-be clamp had to hold it down; the needle always toppled over.</p><p>The other observation I made was while manipulating the &#039;prongs&#039; to raise and lower the &#039;clamp.&#039; --They were slightly sharp, not quite enough to painfully hurt my fingers but definitely less &quot;finger friendly&quot; than the &#039;clamp.&#039; This makes me think that IT (the loop in the back) is the user interface, and the prongs are the real clamps, for clamping something to the front. But I don&#039;t want to be too biased so let&#039;s just say &#039;loop&#039; and &#039;prongs.&#039;</p><p>I posted this object to the two best Facebook groups I&#039;ve ever been in, one for sterling collectors and one for antiquers. Usually when I need help, the speed and accuracy is shocking, as both those groups include extremely knowledgeable people. But this object has EVERYONE stumped, and I mean the replies include words like &quot;maddening&quot; and &quot;haunting,&quot; LOL!! Of course there are plenty of guesses, but only vague ones like &quot;Something for sewing&quot; and &quot;For making eyelets&quot; and &quot;For stringing beads&quot; but with no explanations of exactly how the object would operate. Some people don&#039;t even seem to have noticed how tiny it is, as they&#039;ve guessed &quot;candle snuffer&quot; and &quot;cocktail strainer&quot;, ha.</p><p>So does anyone here know, or have a good guess (with a description of exactly how it would work)? Clearly the most common intuition is that it has something to do with sewing, but I&#039;d like to throw in that it could be some other household function, or even medical or scientific. --[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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