Hello from Hazard!
We didn’t hear anything else on Item No. 1191.
Richard Bader, Middletown, New York, believes it is an old survey marker.
Chris Heilman, of Kittanning, Pennsylvania, said the item was found in the woods.
We’ll move on to Item No. 1192. Linda Farnsworth Mueller, Wadsworth, Ohio, found the item in the old “engine room” shop on our family farm.
If you know what the item is or how it was used, email us at editorial@farmanddairy.com; or by mail to: Hazard a Guess, c/o Farm and Dairy, P.O. Box 38, Salem, OH 44460.
We could use some more items to be featured in our Hazard a Guess column. If you have anything, please send it our way.
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Item 1192 is a Western Union splicing tool. It was used to join two pieces of copper wire together by inserting the wire into a double barrel copper sleeve. Bending the ends down to keep the two wires from slipping out of the sleeve, and then clamping two identical tools like the one pictured at each end of the sleeve and twisting them to create a Western Union style splice. The various grooves in the tool were necessary to accommodate the different sizes of line wire and sleeves. Telegraph, Telephone, and Railroad signal people involved in communication and signal line work used this tool everyday on open wire circuits. It was later replaced by the Nicopress crimping tool and single barrel sleeve requiring only a single tool.