mystery object

Last year I was watching the German TV programme 'Dings vom Dach', in which viewers send in strange objects (tools or devices with a particular use) and a panel has to guess what it is used for. These objects are extremely wide-ranging, as they can be used to do anything in the world, and are strange either because they relate to some esoteric pursuit or because they are historical. Objects from that episode included a pipe holder and a tool used for bending branches of a particular tree in a particular direction so that it would grow that way. (Many of the tools on the show relate to past ways of German life and industry or agriculture.) They can really be anything, as long as it is an object designed for a particular use. Towards the end of the programme, I said that if I were in Germany, I would send in an oboe reed shaper, which is a piece of equipment used to hold some prepared cane in shape over a metal tongue of particular dimensions so that you can cut the cane to the shape of the tongue using a knife. I chose this tool because it was very uncommon: most people don't even know what the mouthpiece of an oboe looks like, let alone what equipment might be used as part of the process of making one. Imagine my surprise when the next object was . . . you guessed it: an oboe reed shaper!