Have you ever seen one of these? A routine query in Benchmark, one of our partner, publications shows just how interconnected we are these days.
A member of The Hand Tool Preservation Society Of Western Australia Inc. was visiting family in Queensland when he saw this on a sellers table at a market. He wondered what it was and got their Editor to post in in their monthly Journal “The Benchmark”. The Journal circulation includes the Tools and Trades History Society in the UK; and TATHS circulates it to their members, where it is eagerly awaited by what has become something of a cult following.
In turn, the TATHS circulation includes the Hawley Collection in Sheffield where one of their team instantly recognised it as an English Interline Pocket Slate, used for producing Braille text. In fact, not only was it recognised, but the individual has one in his personal collection! [see https://blind.iowa.gov/taxonomy/term/81?page=5]. And this conclusion was endorsed by a second TATHS member in Bristol.
Mystery object identified – job done.