Another edition of "What is this Weird Thing I Found?"

In My Humble Opinion
1

We had to remove part of our back deck for some plumbing work, and under the deck we found this thing. Covered in dirt and corrosion, I thought it was a broken bottle at first. But it’s made of metal with a symmetrical curved cutout at the top. The bottom is completely closed off and rounded, like a capsule, so I could fill the bottom part with water and nothing would leak out.

What the heck could this thing possibly be? A couple pics with slightly different angles:

2

Google images says it’s part of a Ax head.

I’m not so sure
But I bet it’s some tool. Garden tool of some sort.

3

Hessian codpiece. (Band name!)

4

Google Lens gave me “bumper guard”.

5

I’d believe ‘bumper guard’ over ‘ax head’. Still, I don’t quite think that’s it.

6

This makes sense. Can’t find an exact match but something like this you could imagine looking like that:

7

Yeah, you know what-- after a beat, and just before you posted, I thought of something like this from 50s car models. All chromed up, it could be the thing…

8

Man, oh man, that’s a lotta chrome.

9

I just remember the proper term for those: “Dagmars”, named for this lady.

10

I don’t know what it is, but it’s really damn cool. I got a whole room of stuff like that I find out in the desert festooning the walls.

Sometimes I miss my wife…

11

Which is odd, because my aim is typically good.

12

The more I google it, the more I am convinced it is indeed a bumper guard from an early 50s, maybe even late 40s era car.

I tried finding what make and model the bumper might be from, but no luck there. The closest I could find was this old Buick with a waterfall grill, but it’s not close to an exact match:

They come in a variety of shapes :


Including the dangerous-looking ‘Dagmar’ bumper guard that @Skywatcher mentioned. Looks like something out of a “Mad Max” movie…

13

The pic needs a ruler. Some of those snazzy old chrome bumpers have bumper guards that are three times the size of your find.

My WAG is a bathtub foot.

~

14

I just measured the thing-- 11.5" long, approx. 4" in diameter.

I don’t think so. Old tub feet were typically clawfoot-style and much more ornamental, I believe. Also, when I took another look to measure it, I wiped off some more of the dirt, and on the side not pictured there are definite remnants of chrome. Clawfeet were sometimes chrome or some similar shiny finish (see pic below) but I would bet money that my thing is an old bumper guard.