Test your knowledge of antiques and collectibles! Do you know what these three items are?

 
 
1. Cigar Cutter
2. Sugar Cutter
3. Herb Cutter

B. What is it?
  

 

1. Magic Lantern
2. Stationary stereoscope
3. Dissolving View Lantern

 
1. Inkwell
2. Snuff Box
3. Egg Cruet

Answers:

A. Answer: 2, a sugar cutter. Sugar was not always granulated as we know it today. During the Victorian era, sugar came in “loafs” or “cones” which needed to be cut or broken off into lumps with a special tool (One lump or two?). However this apparatus was to cut the loaf into more manageable pieces.

B. Answer: 3, A dissolving view lantern. Ever wonder how one scene “dissolved” into another as seen in early movies? This is a precursor to that technique – the notched “hands” moved towards each other to block the view of the next image until it was ready – thus ‘dissolving” one picture into another

C. Answer: 2. A snuff box. Politically incorrect today, rams horns were used to decorate men’s accessories during the Victorian era. It is too masculine to be an egg cruet (these were much more “feminine” in design and tended to be made of silver or porcelain. As an inkwell it would have been too high for the comfort of the writer constantly dipping his or her pen into the ink.

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