I have no clue what this is...

[superzstuff]

The guides and rollers on each end look like typewriter tape device but this thing is BIG. May have been part of some much larger printing or typing machine. I don't think film or recording tape or wire would be dragged through those guides.

[RWalters]

After pondering this for a while, these are my thoughts. I think that the fact that it is hand cranked rules out its use for wire recording. To ensure accurate recording and playback, you would need a consistent speed, difficult to obtain by hand. As for rewinding recording wire, I would think that would be done by simply reversing whatever mechanism was used to move it past the recording heads in the first place. Manual typewriter ribbons autoreversed when they hit an eyelet at the end of the ribbon, so you wouldn't need a device to rewind them. There were ticker tape winders, but they were clockwork, and later electric. Again, the requirement for constant speed. If it were a spool filler of some sort, it wouldn't need to wind back and forth. The combination of no requirement for a consistent speed and the ability to wind back and forth would argue for it being part of a film editing device of some sort. I agree that the rollers as they are would not be suited to this, but perhaps in their original condition they were polished so as not to scratch the film. Also, I think we have to allow for the fact that we may be looking at this upside down. That seems like a lot of exposed gearwork to have sticking out above the work surface, and the spool holders (for lack of a better term) would be easier to work with if the openings faced up. Just my thoughts.

[rusty]

I had an inspiration....Textile

The single offset drive pin is an exact match to a textile machine Jack Spool.

Jack Spools hold ribbon......

Why you would want to roll ribbon from spool to spool by hand is another question tho

(Perhaps to embroider it?)

[john k]

This has gotten interesting.  Wire, tape, film, well film clicked something.   After Edison invented movies, he did not envision them playing on big screens.   He built wooden cabinets the size of Victrolas with a single view port to look through.   Drop in your money and watch a five minute film.   Were they spooling the film with electricity?  Or judging by the age of this mechanism, was it something like this to hand crank the film and rewind it?

[rusty]

>wooden cabinets the size of Victrolas with a single view port to look through

The Kinetoscope: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetoscope