I think that this might be my first OT thread ever!

I picked this up from an estate sale today. Can you all tell me exactly what it is?

I'm thinking it's an early telegraph insulator. Can anyone confirm that?

That's an Iludium q36 space modulator.

Burger!!! Burger!!!
He will know.

It's a hemmoroid display bottle, used....

Its' probably a low voltage insulator.

I don't see internal molded threads in your pix, if so it was not meant for high pole work (they were usually a screw on...and most had cinch nibs)

Are there any cast in markings or names? Point of reference as to size?

If I had to flip a coin...I'd say electric fence work...but that's really off the wall

I guess visible bowl for a gas pump.

Here is another photo of it with a common Hemingray 42.

The mystery bottle is much thinner, and is not threaded on the inside.

However, I do not believe it is a bottle due to the strange shape. The top (or bottom, if you wish) is rounded, and the opening is quite large, too much so for a cork or a stopper.

Ignacio, now that's funny!
I can hear Marvin saying that and can almost do his voice.

Also, I neglected to mention that it has no markings on it.

There is also a pinpoint hole on the top.

Looks to me like a light bulb cover.

Like the kind that is used in an explosion proof fixture.

Doc has been looking for that. I goes on the flux capacitor. He needs it to get back to the future !

We used to have the glass dust covers around the lights in our barn's hay mow. They looked nothing like that.

It is too light (thickness of glass) to be a line insulator. Will it fit over a
common light bulb ?

My first though is that it is the vessel part of a water dispenser for fowl
like chickens. The missing base would have a ring/trough for the water
to stand in and holes connecting the vessel to the trough, by which water
could flow when the trough level got below the atmospheric pressure threshold
and air burped up into the vessel, equalizing the water into the trough.

Burger? Thats all you got? We were counting on you. Darryl, your up.

Burger,
But it has a pin-point hole in the top!
part of a Van-De-Graft generator??
Scientific apparatus?
Definitely an conversation piece!
Resistance is Futile, Marvin!!!

Alright, not a water feeder.

I doubt it has any electrical application. Most certainly not a pole
top/line carrying insulator in the usual sense. The color is like nothing
I have ever seen for a squirrel guard/transformer type application.

The Q-36 space modulator!

A glass whatz-it....

It looks like the top part of an old poultry waterer.
It would sit full of water inverted on a dish like basin and as the birds drank water would flow out of it into the basin to re-fill it. That would explain the vent hole at the top too.

In other words, it (or this guess..) is for the birds!

Dale, if your "poultry waterer" has a hole at the top, it won't hold water.

Rich,
you're right, it would just bleed out, but after looking at it again it is too small anyway, unless it was for hummingbirds!.

Maybe it is for displaying a pocket watch or other keepsake from a hook that would be suspended from that hole?

Dale, I think that's more likely, compared to the "real" insulator that's more the size, and would account for the hole except the opening is so small. Maybe some kind of specialized lab glassware ??

Opening at the base is too small for a display globe, couldn't get much inside with that opening. I'm thinking some sort of lab apparatus, maybe the hole is for a small wire?

Ok, it is either:

1) a "cupping " jar. It would have had a rubber bulb attached to the hole that would be squeezed and then the jar mouth would be smeared with Vaseline or some other sealant and then placed on the skin. Once affixed, the bulb would be released creating a vacuum in the jar and upon the surface of the skin. Handy for drawing out lanced boils or letting blood, and all sorts of "sports medicine " quackery as you will occasionally see athletes that have had this done for some odd reason, leaving their skin spotted with round bruises where the jars were applied.
(see Mike Phelps, Rio Olympics )

2) a breast pump. Same basic procedure as above, but applied to a more interesting region of the female body...

After careful examination (I have education and experience in glass manufacturing.) I have made the following observation about the mystery piece.

The seam indicates that it was formed in a two piece graphite or steel mold.
The glass thickness suggests that it was hand blown.
The base suggests that it was fire polished to get smooth.

And for the final observation -- the paper tag on the top clearly means the the glass thing was made to hold the $1.00 price tag.

(Message edited by Nhusa on April 03, 2017)