Take a trip to a simpler era, when inventors crafted solutions that required neither chips nor circuit boards – just plain old American ingenuity. This collection features a variety of tools, presented with original photos and text. Can you identify these mystery items without looking at the descriptions?

All of the tools come from the pages of Farm Collector, a magazine for collectors of vintage farm equipment. In the monthly What Is It? feature, readers contribute photos of objects and others pitch in to identify the items (often sharing memories of personal experiences with long-forgotten tools). The popular articles have been running for 12 years, and this collection draws from that rich archive to present some of the most inventive of inventions and most curious of curiosities.