The Mystery Device That United the Internet
How crowdsourcing curiosity uncovered the secret behind a strange tool — and reminded us of the power (and quirks) of collective sleuthing.
Sometimes a photo, a short clip, or an odd object pops up online and people stop in their tracks. That’s exactly what happened when a mysterious piece of metal tooling surfaced online, and the internet stepped in to help figure out what it really was.
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The Scene: A Tool, Unknown Purpse
An image of a strange steel tool — something like a clamp or a grinder component — began circulating. It looked old-school, heavy duty, and nobody immediately recognized its function. The original post asked: “What is this?”
Within hours (or days) people started chiming in: “Looks like a meat mincer attachment?” “Could it be for fish processing?” The guesses ranged far and wide.
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How the Internet Worked It Out
What happened next is a textbook example of internet-powered crowdsourcing:
Many people contributed pieces of knowledge — “I remember seeing a tool like this in my grandmother’s kitchen.”
Others searched databases, old catalogs, vintage classifieds, or hobby forums for similar tools.
Eventually someone (or a few) located an image of the exact device described in a nineteenth-century household appliance catalogue: it was a meat mincer (formerly called a meat grinder or “mincer & mixer”) used in the UK for mincing raw or cooked meat, fish, vegetables, etc.
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The Reveal: What It Was
The consensus: the device was a hand-crank meat mincer. Historically, these apparatuses were used to push meat through a perforated plate to grind it, often for sausages or mixed dishes. The functionality evolved over time to electric versions, but the classic manual version remained widespread in households in earlier eras.
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Why It Resonated
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