Vintage Thursday! Guessing Game!

Can anyone guess what these old wooden things are?? Don't know?
I'll give you some hints .......

They come in a lot of different sizes. This large one is about 2ft high and almost as wide.

The way they are sitting is not the position they were used. Their functioning position would be laying on their sides.

They were used on transportation vehicles.

Still no guesses?

This little one shows steel bands around it and it also show how the slots were used. See the two pieces of wood sticking out on either side? They used to be a lot longer, but have broken off. When this was used, all the open slots would have had pieces of wood sticking in them.
Ok, I'm just going to tell you what this is. . . .

They are old wagon wheel hubs. You know back in the horse and wagon days ... the wagons had wooden wheels with spokes? These hubs were in the center of the wagon wheel and were used to hold the spokes and rims of the wheels.
Go take a look HERE to see what it looks like all put together as a wagon wheel.

The story behind why I have old wagon wheel hubs by my front door?

My husband's Uncle Lou was a bit of an eccentric man. The life of this man is a whole book in itself, but briefly told, he was a collector.
Gosh, .... the man collected really odd things. Hmmm ... I don't want to be disrespectful so I have to word this carefully ....
He owned several houses in that small town ... all of them vacant and all of them held his collected items ... literally from floor to ceiling, in every room, on every floor, from basement to attic with just a narrow pathway through each room.

At some point, when my husband and his brother were in their early teens, Uncle Lou found out about an old wagon wheel company that was going out of business.
Uncle Lou bought the contents of the wagon wheel company which consisted of HUNDREDS of old, used wagon wheel parts. We don't know why he did this.
My husband and his brother were used as free labor by my uncle to unload the truck full of heavy wagon wheel parts and store them in one of Uncle Lou's vacant homes.

There they sat until Uncle Lou passed away some 25 years later.

Now, since Uncle Lou never married, my mother-in-law was left with the entire mess of his estate and what the heck to do with hundreds of wagon wheels, old oak spokes and rusted rims.
Floor to ceiling wagon wheel hubs! My husband used to groan when even thinking about those hubs because that was some major unpaid labor he did to unload them so he didn't really want anything more to do with them other than light a match to the entire vacant home and happily watch it burn to the ground.

Well, ... let's just say .... hmmm... have to be respectful here again. My mother-in-law was a collector. ....
She wasn't about to let these old wagon wheel hubs and spokes go up in smoke via bonfire.
She did some research ... this was back before the internet too ... and found a small company that still made wagon wheels. She gave everything to him .... Yes, that's right, she gave them away to the first person who was willing to haul those hundreds of heavy, dirty wooden hubs away and out of our life.

Even though we thought they were all gone....the hubs would still appear in different places over time....haunting us. When we were dealing with my mother-in-law's estate 10 years ago, we came across even more down in her basement.

So the ones that I have here in my own yard are some of the few that were left over. Do I wish that I had kept more and sold them for their antique value?
NO .... wait .... I need to clairfy my answer .... NO, I DON'T WANT TO DEAL WITH ANYMORE HUBS EVER AGAIN! :)

This is why I have old antique wagon wheel hubs sitting at the front of my house. They don't haunt us anymore because instead of hiding them away in a dark musty basement, I use them outside to hold my flowerpots and for the memories and lessons that we've learnd from them.

One very important lesson that was learned was; Vacant houses should be rented or sold and not used for floor to ceiling storage.

Vintage Thingies Thursdays is hosted by Suzanne. Go take a click over to Coloradolady's blog to find more Vintage Thingies.

NOTE: I've finished the Pumpkin Penny Rug and will be announcing details for its giveaway tomorrow.
YES! I will be giving this away!

Here's the finished penny rug that I will be giving away. Again, the lighting is bad on this because it's a rainy dreary day. I had to take this to my kitchen table to get decent natural light. The orange pumpkin colors are really a lot darker than shown.
Oh and sorry, but that big can of Nacho Cheese that is shown in the picture will NOT be included with the giveaway. Sorry.

Be sure to check back tomorrow so that you can enter for a chance to win this wonderful penny rug. If you add me as a follower, I'll give you an extra entry chance, but that offer will close at midnight tonight.