OK, I’m sure someone here can help. A coworker has acquired a table and is wondering what device or object it is made from. They think it has something to do with a boat but I’m not sure. It looks like something I should be able to identify, but no luck. Anyone here have any ideas?
Thanks
Hey, a friend of mine has the same table! I love that table - I covet that table.
No idea what it is, though. Sorry.
The bit in the middle looks a bit like (obviously) a porthole, but even without WhyNot’s post, I’d be inclined to suspect that the fittings aren’t genuine items, but rather, castings with a aged nautical feel that were made specifically for the table and if this is the case, they might not actually resemble anything exactly.
I suspect it isn’t nautical at all.
The bowl is used for grinding, and the grinding/mashing tool is sitting across the top. The wide paddle part is for grinding things down in the bowl, and the tool has a little ball-end handle.
Looks like it could be released and used (or made to look that way).
Hmm…we always thought the middle part looked like it would hold a few glowing coals or a small fire - in fact, my friend’s metal center looks charred, as if it held a fire at one time. (Of course, we can’t tell if it was intended as such or if the previous owners just thought like we do.) Could the paddle looking thing (which my friend does not have) be a teeny tiny fire shovel?
Or maybe it’s a really big ashtray? :eek:
I would have guessed ashtray as well. Even if it wasn’t supposed to be, I’m willing to bet money that previous owners used it as such.
My WAG is that it’s Eastern in origin (or design) and the bowl was used for burning incense. I further guess that the fittings are either brass which has been coated with zinc or a base metal which at one point was coated with brass. (I really couldn’t tell you for sure without looking at it in person.)
