Paging Happy Homemakers -- What IS This?

[rp2813]

My friend Lisa was recently clearing out her mom's San Francisco home of many years before putting it on the market, and she found the item pictured below.  She thought I might know what it was.  I told her I didn't, but that I knew a good place to inquire about it . . .

 

[turquoisedude]

This is just a guess - fountain pen holder?

 

[pulltostart]

It appears to be ceramic.  Maybe a cigar ashtray?

 

lawrence

 

[rp2813]

It does seem to be ceramic.  At first I thought the "tray" part might be a lid to something that's missing, but the "tray" bottom looks like one, with markings and what have you barely visible under the glaze.  It's definitely not a lid.

 

I'm wondering if there was ever a fourth trough, and if there's some sort of lid that goes over what's pictured above, or if what we see is what was gotten.

 

Whatever it is, it's some sort of novelty item that either never caught on or didn't last long.  The weirdest thing about it is that it looks like it's been used.  Whether that was for its intended purpose or something else, we won't ever never know.

 

[chachp]

Making Brownies?

 

<span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms', sans-serif;">Could it be one of that pans for making brownies where every piece has an edge?  The modern ones look more like a maze but this could work for that provided you greased it well enough not to stick.  Does it seem like a piece that would be suitable for baking in?</span>

 

[pulltostart]

Maybe an hors-d'oeuvre tray or a chip/dip tray?

 

lawrence

 

[rp2813]

Over 200 views and still nobody knows!

 

I was thinking the troughs might be for olives, but they'd require a trick to remove them.  And everything is just loose parts. 

 

We have a local antiques guy whose column appears in the paper every Sunday.  He'll often post a picture from a reader who is trying to identify something.  I might have to send him a shot of this thing, even though it's not quite an antique.

 

[ea56]

Ralph,

What does the other side look like? I have a feeling that this may be the lid to something, what I don’t know, but those troughs may be there to hold some apparatus in place in whatever the lower part is that this lid goes to. The lip around the edge defineltly looks like it is there to hold this lid in place on the thing it was meant to be on top of.
Eddie

 

[rpms]

Could you put it in the oven? Would ribs stand up in the troughs and put kraut around the bottom?
Is it dishwasher safe?

 

[ovrphil]

My thought

I like Brian's idea,but it looks like a mold for either baking or a cold mold? I've never seen one of these, either.

 

[rp2813]

Eddie, I thought it might be a lid for the same reasons you do.  But the bottom, which would be the top of the lid, has irregularities and some stamped markings under its glaze, so I concluded that it's not a lid.   It's definitely the bottom of whatever this is.

 

Now the question is whether there's a lid for what we see above.  It could fit over/around the ridge on the "tray" thing.  Lisa's mom was a hoarder in her old age, so it's possible she kept this thing even though it may or may not be complete.

 

[vacerator]

Could it be,

to stand slices of bread up in to bake in the oven?