Dad showed me this thing yesterday. He found it in their barn.
It appears to be a hook of some sort that slides back and forth on the wood piece. Ther was only one hook on it, and only one piece of wood about 18″ long.
Anybody seen something like this before?
Big doesn’t necessarily mean better. Sunflowers aren’t better than violets.
Replies
It sure looks like a picture hanger.
"Put your creed in your deed." Emerson
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
I think it is picture rail. The wood picture rail mounts near the ceiling and the metal hooks slide along it to hang pictures from.
Frank DuVal
Looks like picture hanging moulding that gets mounted anywhere from at the ceiling to 16" below. Art is suspended on wires from the hook that can be positioned anywhere along the wall. There is probably a specific name for the moulding, but like a lot of things; I don't know it.
It is called picture rail. I have never seen this kind with the hook so firmly embedded. Normally the hooks snap on and off, but this kind with the slot in the bottom makes it look like the hook is on permanent.A lot of the places here with plaster have this just about half an inch below the ceiling. Just friday, I spent the day hanging pictures for people ( no fun - move it over to the left an inch - no wait back, now it is two inches too high, maybe we should try another picture there, do you think this mirror is too heavy for that hook- oh look, here is the picture of your mother kissing santa cluse......) and using them. The newer snap hooks we get are cheaper metal - bends too easy! a really heavy picture frame could straighten them right out.The hook in this picture looks like it is forged and would never bend.
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I wonder if it was something slightly different.An early version of slat-wall.Based on the heavy weight and the fact that the hangar seems to be on removable, except at the end, I wonder if it was some kind of "picture rail" designed for commercial use.To display items for sale in a store.Or to hange tools in a shop..
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A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
that could be - I imagine a store fixture for the downtown mercantile shop so the merchant can display his wares
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Remember this is pre slat board/peg board times!
Picture frame molding is the best guess, but the size of it makes you wonder.
Maybe came out of a butcher shop mand hung sides of beef on it?????
It didn't look that big to me. I'd call it 1-3/4" tall
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Now you made me go back and look at it again.
Now that I see it with the thumb in the photo.
I am just accustom to the present day picture mold and hangers, the hangers are just a pressesed sheet metal.
Thanks! I have run across less robust ones over the years, but never cast or forged ones. Every one I have seen simply hooked over the top and was not captive.
picture mould with hanger...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
It is a picture rail moulding that is used to hang framed prints, but the size of the metal hook is enough to hang anything. Maybe it was used on the same prinicaple, but for larger items????????
probably to keep the kids in check...Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
Thanks all.I've never seen or heard of anything like that. Must be something that's popular in some regions and not others. I'll pass this along to Dad - I'm sure he'll be happy to know what it is.
The secret of success is knowing whom to blame for your failures.
I don't think it is regional so much as historical. Old horsehair plaster was very sensitive about having holes poked in it to hang pictures and you could not be sure of the lathe supporting the weight of those big old frames and portraits or landscapes. Some picture/frame combinations are heavy enough to really hurt somebody if they fell on them, and of course they didn't have piffinscrews back then....The continuous rail could be well nailed to the wall though. Sometimes trim was in place before plastering and there would be a shim behind this piece even.With high ceilings, the rail might be 16" or more below the ceiling so you could reach it easier, and the wall might even be painted a different colour above the rail for different effects
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Picture mould is still a stock item in most lumberyards.
I wonder if there was a small section near the corner where the bottom of the mould was cut away so the hangers could be slipped on & off. All it would take would be a small notch in the wood."Put your creed in your deed." Emerson
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
"Picture mould is still a stock item in most lumberyards."
Maybe where you're at. But I've never seen or heard of the stuff.
Like I said - It must be a regional thing.
Liberalism not only legitimizes envy, jealousy, ignorance, and the lack of moral standards, but it also makes these attributes virtues. [Drake Raft]
I'm sure if I went into any lumber yard here and asked for it I'd get a dumb look. Maybe if I found an old geezer at one of the small yards, he'd know what I was talking about, but he'd shake his head.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
http://images.google.com/images?q=%22picture+rail%22+%2B+moldings&btnG=Search+Images&svnum=10&um=1&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3AofficialMaybe not too common in that "Faux mid-western" style, eh?;)
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Well....We still DO have older houses with horse hair plaster. Maybe midwesterners are just better at driving nails into it and didn't need fancy mouldings.(-:
If at first you don't succeed, it could that you're just not be very good at it.
Stronger horses. None of them fancy-dancy English trotters.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
or maybe they can't afford pictures
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Keep the horses out of the house and you won't get their hair stuck in the wet plaster. Dang hillbillies."Put your creed in your deed." Emerson
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
Most of the "horse hair" in old plaster is cow hair, & ox hair, a byproduct of the tannery. A whole lot more cattle went to the butcher than horses.
Until the mid-to late 1800's, the vast majority of U.S. cows were red or brown, the color you see in that plaster. The Black Angus & Holstein, black & white spots, as on a Gateway computer box, didn't get popular until comparatively recently.
It's the body hair, not the mane & tail hair, which most people think of.
More than you wanted to know about old plaster - I should know, having eaten a lot of it...
one of my daughters lives in a ca. 1910 craftsman-style house. The only room that doesn't have a picture rail is the kitchen and the dining room, the latter of which has a plate rail all around.I'm just glad she's only renting, or I'd have a whole house of woodwork and build ins that I'd be stripping and refinishing.
Boss,It IS regional.And it is LIKE picture rail, but it is for hanging up the chairs. Hence the bigger beefier hooks.And since a room would only have just so many chairs, the number of hooks needed would be predictable. Hence the hooks can be made larger and put on more permanently.Check with the local amish. (Or was it quakers that hung up the chairs except for mealtime ?)
Yeh... That'll work.
It was Shakers who had that habit of hanging the chairs - but on Shaker pegs in the wall.
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http://galenfrysinger.us/us/kentucky037.jpg
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Yup.So these people used hooks instead of pegs.
Yeh... That'll work.
If you can hang a chair on that little bitty hook, I'll eat YOUR hat
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What you talkin bout Willis ?I said a picture of a chair.Yeh, dats da ticket. A picture of a chair.;o)
Yeh... That'll work.
How about to hang a blackboard at school?Jerry
Cabinet style wardrobe hanger? Given that the hook is securely locked in place on the rail how about something out of an early train car? Or other vehicle that would need a secured fastener?"Poor is not the person who has too little, but the person who craves more."...Seneca
> Or other vehicle that would need a secured fastener?You mean like a mobile home?
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
Schools do use something similar to hang maps and have a clip on them to hold papers.The upper part of the blackboards had an extruded aluminum channel and they had bracket that slide in them with a hook and spring clips.It is possible that some one handy with backsmithing might have gotten the idea and made up a set for exactly that..
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A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
Right... your describing a moderm implementation, which may mimic an older one.I vaguely recall seeing something like that on one of my many school trips with my kids to a restoration village here, but couldn't find any proof on the web.I was hoping I might jog someones memory.Jerry
You can try posting the pic at the Old House Journal Boards. There is a guy there that sells restored hardware. He knows everything about hardware....that's not a mistake, it's rustic
Back in the days of horsehair plaster, they didn't have "prints" did they? The pictures they were hanging had big old frames and sometimes heavy enough for two men.I hung one that weighed a good forty pounds which was not too bad, until you realize I was balancing on top of a step ladder and the picture came from an art auction with a price paid around forty grand - not something you want to drop. The husband was very nervous watching me hang it, so I asked him if he could get me a drink from the kitchen and that way it was up before he got back and he didn't have to watch all white knuckled, LOL
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I'm gonna disagree with everyone else and say it's picture rail.
(Though certainly picture rail and its ilk was used from time to time for commercial purposes, keep in mind that old stores didn't display stuff nearly to the extent of modern stores, so the need for tricky store display techniques was virtually nonexistent.)
"I'm gonna disagree with everyone else and say it's picture rail."Huh? How is that disagreeing when everybody else said it is picture rail?
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First off it was found in a BARN. Second it is a lot more robust than traditional picture rail. Thus I would conclude that it was used in the barn to hang farm implements and/or horse gear.
Good idea really
barns are generally big...
lots of storage space...Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
Barns are where old farmers store their old salvage junk too. That means nothing if it wasn't installed there. Robust?Some things are more robust than others. I have taken out poccket door hardware and lazy suzan hardware that is cast iron that would amaze you by omparison to what is used now.
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<I have taken out poccket door hardware and lazy suzan hardware that is cast iron that would amaze you by omparison to what is used now.>
Yeah - what happened to our design ethic? we've got a hand-cranked cider press / sausage stuffer in the hall about the size of a small ice cream freezer; cast iron, 40-50 lbs, iron bevel gears and Acme thread with oil cups; would have to last five hundred years.
Forrest
> would have to last five hundred years.There's the problem, as Maytag and a few others discovered.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
Yeah - what happened to our design ethic? we've got a hand-cranked cider press / sausage stuffer in the hall about the size of a small ice cream freezer; cast iron, 40-50 lbs, iron bevel gears and Acme thread with oil cups; would have to last five hundred years.
Isn't it called "planned obsolecense" or something like that? Now that the accountants and lawyers are running all the big companies, they've figured out it's not exactly in their interest to make an appliance that will last 500 years. It's better (or so they figure) to have it break every two years and require you to buy a new one.
Makes me sick.
With all the advanced technology we have at our disposal today, we should be building things better than ever before. Instead, we're awash in cheap crap from China -- but we seem to like it because we're all buying it.
It's so simple, It's a BULL restrainer ,you hooked it on to the ring in the Bulls nose and he could not go anywhere.
BELIEVE IT OR BELIEVE IT NOT
RGDS BOYSIE SLAN LEAT.
And if you think that little old molding will hold a bull, I'll eat his horns
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Boss,
I see picture rail all the time -- it was standard issue out where I live up to the early 1930s.
However, I do NOT think what you found is picture rail; The hook is simply way too heavy and clumsy-looking. I can't imagine Suzy homemaker wanting 16 or so of those things clanging around on the walls.
Furthermore, the fact that the hook is captive would mean that the builder would have to put all the hooks on the rail prior to installation. That's an extremely inflexible system, and it just doesn't make sense to me when all the hundreds of picture rails I've seen were never executed that way.
If someone can show me a profile from an old catalog with a captive hook marked as "picture rail" then I'll eat my words. ;)
Someone else suggested that it might have been for a tack room or the equivalent. Sounds like a reasonable explanation, and it gets my vote.
The fact the hook is locked to the molding is what captures my imagination too.
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Actually, it was a picture rail for a mobile home.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
why would ya want to hang up yur mobile home???Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
Piffin, I am also intrigued by that , but more so by the fact that they are a matched set. That hanger would not fit on any other style of picture rail molding. Seems obvious that it was A) A one of a kind piece someone made (I doubt that ) B) Designed with a very specific purpose in mind.
One would have bought the rail and as many hangers as needed for whatever that purpose was."Poor is not the person who has too little, but the person who craves more."...Seneca
Piffin
No question on the picture rail but as rangnar suggested the hook does look substantial. I've seen miles of this stuff but never anything like that. I'm guessing Boss had some down there in his town but just never noticed it before - obviously there was some otherwise where did that sample come from?
I've never seen it as regional cause its seams to be everywhere.
I'm wondering about a store or mercantile of some sort. The chair hanger doesn't seam plausible because of the size of hook, not the strength but the actual size of hook.
Doug
Edited 7/9/2007 9:59 pm ET by DougU
Right - you could hang a cord or string or wire thru it, but no part of a chait would hook into that hanger.
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A hammock? (G)
It's a holder for keys. Those big ol skeleton keys were heavy.
Here's an image of several picture rail hooks. As you can see, many are quite elegant.
View Image
Looks the same as this one:
View Image
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
Sorry -- did someone already post that?
and this one...
View ImageLife is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
And this one too:
View Image
Yeh... That'll work.