Guess What Article for January 2001
By Bob Cahn, “The Primitive Man”

Sometimes the art of verbal presentation must face up to the risky task of creating word wizardry to make up for the lack of visual excitement of an illustrated object, give it a syllabic boost to make a lacklustre item more presentable. This is one of those occasions.

What we have is a passive barely active, semi-lethargic entity comprised of two slats of thin wood attached by brass slab coiled springs to a base slab — giving it a soft bouncy buoyant characteristic: [size – 8″ L x 4″ deep]. Almost forgot, the top slab — as you can see — is divided into two equal pieces for separate, non-connected freedom of action.

With this month’s teaser presentation, we have a surprise for you — a departure from our normal “show ‘n tell” approach, in the fact that we’re actually going to give you the answer. Of coarse there’s a catch; we’re going to point you toward an iron-clad clue, but you’ll have to work for it, no charity…no free rides. In the past on several occasions we’ve hidden the answer amongst a list of tongue-in-cheek possibilities, inviting you to wade through the imposters and ferret out the true identity.

Somewhere within the pages of this issue there’s a feature article containing a visual clue, a line drawing depicting this mystery item. To motivate you, we’re offering a free 1-year subscription to the reader with the first correct answer phoned in to 1-888-698-0734.

In the meantime, some of the off-the-record mind confusing suggestions:

Side-by-side dual practice spring boards for Olympic synchronized choreographed diving.
Casino black jack fresh playing card deck ready rack.
Football player knee-action exercises strengthening equipment (model)
Desktop memo, letter holder and ink bottle platform.
Gymnastic vaulting horse dual action springboard approach.
Diet menu food portion balance scale.
Ballet dancer’s tour jete development training apparatus (scale model)
Counterfeit coin weight detector.
Musicians’ sunken orchestra pit platform prototype [before the development of electricity]
Eccentric vaudeville tap dance and acrobatic portable performance stage (miniature)
Military rising tide bridge leveling link segment.

Now that the “Preposterous Proposal Board” had made its final report, we urge you to take advantage of our “Guess What” guessing and research offer as outlined above. Have fun!

Answer to December’s Guess What..?

Little did we know that last month’s “Guess What” would wind up being so typically topical. Our crystal ball mystically told us to feature a politically correct piece of early election equipment, which, if in use today—would have prevented the monster mess of the nationally infamous Florida swamp fight.

While the late night comics were having a field day, we serendipitously came up with our own spotlight special — a “chad-less” voting box. This early 20th C. Morris County, New Jersey ballot box features half inch thick chicken-wire re-enforced tamper proof glass sides with a cylinder locking iron steel cover. The paper-voting slot contains dangerously sharp inner knife blade fingers to guard against one trying to retrieve or tamper with already cast ballots.

An inner bell beneath the lid would be rung by a triggered device to signify that the individual action was over. An extra storage security measure was provided by the galvanized protective over-cap with its triple hasp and keeper padlocking capability.

*Available for aquisition