Oddities, artifacts, and strange finds! It doesn't take a visit to a museum or gallery to see things you've never seen before. Sometimes you can find mysteries right in your own backyard.
But what fun is a mystery without a solution? These people took to the internet for help in identifying their bizarre discoveries!
This must be a terrifying thing to find in the backyard of your own home, but it ended up being rather mundane. It's the cap to a septic tank!
So today I realized I must still be five years old, as I learned part of the head of a hammer is called a "peen" and I giggled over that for a moment. Then I went on to learn that blacksmithing hammers had many different types of peens, including a diagonal peen, which is what the hammer above has!
If my French isn't too rusty, the words translate to "obedience and discipline." It was discovered to be part of the rim on a decorative plate showing a French military unit from the late 1860s. What a niche find!
Of course, some people suggested a condom dispenser, but many were quick to note the slot was too big and Walmart would not be a common place for those. People then settled on a diaper dispenser. For $1, the uploader could find out for sure!
Someone in the comments did a great job at explaining, so I'll lend you their expertise: "It's pretty common for people in Japan to rinse and spit when they get a 'thick' or unpleasant feeling in their mouth. It's considered unhealthy to swallow that back down, so temples and spaces where you might walk a lot will have things like this.
Since the red is marked 'fluid' and not water, it's possible that there's heavy fluoride or some other chemical added."
If you thought it looks like some kind of rack like I did, you'd be right! It's a magazine rack, though I'm sure it hasn't been used in a while.
This device strips corn of the cob! I get this is personal preference, but I don't see the use for this tool. On-the-cob is the best way to eat corn!
The shape of the pattern has to do with how the plastic formed and moved while it was molded, but the sugar sticking to it is due to static electricity!
What looks like some sort of forest jellyfish is actually frogspawn, or frog eggs!
While it sure is stabby-looking, it's by no means a weapon. This is a tool used to pull weeds out of cracks and gaps in pavement!
This is called an "aide de memoire," French for "memory aide." It was used as a calendar of sorts, meant for jotting down appointments and other events coming up in the week!
It would be almost cooler if they were Monopoly houses, but they're not. They're resin beads for a bracelet, and when put together they would look something like this.
Unfortunately, it's probably the worst thing to find in your door, as it's part of a lock pick set. Someone noted that the tool being there means someone must have gotten scared off while trying to break in, as no one would want to leave something so incriminating behind.
So these are ion-exchange resin beads, which help filter out some of the bad chemicals in the smoke. Apparently, ion-exchange resin is used in sugar manufacturing, juice production, and pharmaceuticals!
A rather mundane answer, it's a tea infuser — a rather large one at that — with the metal bit missing! One this size is meant for jugs and pitchers of tea over single cups.
A gorgeous little piece of art, this is a glass slide for a magic lantern! The magic lantern was a specific projector that would, well, project the images on the slides up onto walls and screens.
Like the lock pick from before, this is exactly what it looks like. Someone used this device to break into this user's car, but nothing was stolen. They likely ran away when the alarm went off. The attempted thieves were caught trying to break into another car in the same lot just days later!
You've heard of flasks for alcohol, but here's one for gun powder: a Colt Glass gunpowder flask — an older one, too, seeing as they are now made of copper.
Despite its almost sinister appearance, this headpiece is actually helpful. It's a pair of sound amplifier headphones, essentially a big hearing aid.
An exact answer for this was never found, but it was identified to be part of the security system. Others urged this user to call the company to find out what it does, and told stories of secret security features houses they moved into had, like playing a voice alarm asking for help when the power goes out, or calling the police when someone entered through the back door.
Called a miao comb, they likely originated from China and were made to hold head wraps in place!
If you are a Star Wars fan, you might recognize these. They're the dice used in the card game Correlian Spike, which is a card game in the Star Wars universe. These are likely meant to be a replica of Han Solo's pair, which he kept as a lucky charm throughout the series.
This is cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae. It can occur naturally in many bodies of water, but some strains of the bacteria pose a health risk, as it is very toxic and dogs especially run a danger of ingesting some if their owners let them in the water.
A definitive answer couldn't be made, but one user explained how it likely isn't actually anything special: "Boxes with this inscription are generic gifts/souvenirs. I've seen them containing everything from wood jewelry to small drink bottles. [...] it looks like a generic tourist souvenir and without context, it would be almost impossible to identify."
It's actually kind of the opposite of a shoehorn. It's called a bootjack and is meant to help remove shoes with dirtying your hands. Put one foot on the flat part and use the horns to take off your other shoe.
This brick of an attachment is a phone scrambler, meant to keep calls private, untraceable, and untappable.
What looks like an accessibility ramp mishap was actually intentional, as it's a kayak hutch! They're designed this way so people can safely board their kayaks and push themselves into the water.
Can't find a possible use for a random object? There's always a chance it could just be decoration, like these! Gazing balls are reflective spheres used in landscape decoration.
Turns out, exfoliating is exactly right! These are silkworm cocoons, and are a popular natural product for exfoliating the face!
These little guys are likely balls of cornmeal that fell off somewhere along the production line but still got fried anyway. Safe, but I'm not sure how good they'd taste on their own.
