Yesterday's Inventions

"The 1920s satnav ... and other weird and wonderful gadgets that never quite took off"
Daily Mail (August 15, 2008)

"It was the invention of the future - a tiny machine complete with its own map that would tell motorists which way to go.

"But this was no satnav - after all, the communications satellites that help modern cars locate themselves were still decades away.

"Instead, the route-finder for the well-equipped 1920s driver was a wristwatch-style device equipped with minuscule maps...."

Other items include a clockwork burglar alarm, double-barrel cigarette holder, and eye massager.

That's right: eye massager.

There's a photo of each strange gadget.

The title, "...that never quite took off," may not be entirely accurate. One of the gadgets, the mustache cup version of the moustache protector may have been fairly common about a hundred years back: in America, at any rate.

I've seen a number of the things in museums and family clutter: some of my aunts and uncles were pack rats of a sort.

There's more about mustache cups at "MOUSTACHE CUP - MUSTACHE CUP" (A Small Collection of Antique Silver and Objects of vertu).