A bit gruesome perhaps, but I love a homemade mechanical object, and to my mind a homemade mousetrap is compelling in a similar way to a bee box--an individualistic and often make-do solution to the problem at hand. I'm not 100% sure exactly how this one was set, but depressing the wire handle lowers a wire loop inside the carved out barrel, while releasing it raises that loop, trapping the proverbial mouse inside, and it seems piercing its back with a few sharp wire teeth in the process. There is a small hole in the top of the wood and another directly below it in the bottom, I believe meant to be threaded with string, with that string then wrapped around the barrel, so that when pulled taut the wire handle would lower and the mouse would be free to enter the trap. Perhaps that string was meant to be swathed in peanut butter, enticing the mouse to chew right through the string at which point the loop would raise? There are notches carved into the exterior of the barrel that suggest string was indeed pulled tight around it. How many ways to catch a mouse???!
4 1/16" l. Wood 2 1/8 x 1 7/8. With wire 3 1/8" t. All in very good condition, with good age to it and in seemingly operable condition, with the interior carved out tapering/narrowing as if just large enough to accommodate the mouse’s nose at the deepest point!
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