Whatzit?

[healey36]

Apologies in advance for the small picture:



Whatzit?

Healey

[rogruth]

It's a small picture that I can hardly see.
I don't mean for this to be a funny or cute answer.

[healey36]

Okay, blew it up a bit, as much as possible before starting to lose resolution.

[Roy]

An old telephone relay?

[healey36]

not a bad guess, Roy.

[webenda]

Time delay relay or contactor?

[healey36]

Definitely relays and contactors, but what's the application?



Next shot probably gives it away...

[Roy]

Part of an electro-mechanical fire-control computer?

[healey36]

Definitely electro-mechanical...this version hit the market in 1909.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

I mean, who gets this kind of stuff!!!! You guys are amazing. I thought my getting an adolescent to stop threatening to bash the fellow-student's head in, sitting across from him, was knowing stuff, but making insightful input about what that contraption likely is absolutely amazes me.

I tip my hat to all of you. You guys know lots of stuff!

[Roy]

Now that I see the casing, I'm thinking torpedo detonator. Didn't Josh Cowen come up with something along that line?

[healey36]

Next shot:



Not a homing-torpedo...

Healey

[MurphOnMillerAve]

...something like a shoulder-held bazooka or a small shoulder-launched missile?

[Rufus T. Firefly]

....sex toy for elephants?

[webenda]

Next shot probably gives it away...

Yeah, right, now I know exactly what it is.

It is John J. Loud's latest (1909 i.e.) invention for his ballpoint pen invention of 1888.

It is the mechanism that extends and retracts the point of the pen.