"Hello, this is Laura, who's this?...oh, hi!"

"No, we didn't have any winners in last week's Mystery...what?"

"I can't quite hear you--hello? Hello?"

"I think I need a new telephone line!--Hang on for just a minute, OK?--while I take just a sec to install one with my handy telephone lineman's masonry drill!"

I will be the first to admit that, given the usual assortment of ole-timey bric-a-brac, this is a fairly--no, totally obscure item. Where did I get it? Why, from a telephone lineman who came out to my house to fix my line this past summer! Does he go around randomly distributing antique telephone lineman masonry drills, you ask? No! He gave it to me because I showed him my beautiful telephone lineman's field phone, from the "old telephone stuff" subset of my "antique collection" (i.e., "random old junk cluttering up the place.")

His eyes gleamed when he saw it, and he admired its rugged construction. "I wonder if it works?" I said. Before I knew it he had my wall box unscrewed and was clamping the alligator clamps on the lines. Was that a dial tone, from this decades-old artifact? He dialed in a number, listened, then held it up for me to listen.

It worked perfectly. He and I looked at each other in a moment of shared geekery.

He went back to his truck and I thought he was gone--but no, he came back with a strange object. Turns out he wanted to give it to me. He explained how he used to use it, as a lineman back in the 70s. He'd screw in a drill bit in the chuck at the narrow end of the cone. Grasping the hard rubber handle, he'd place the end of the bit on a spot on a brick wall where he wanted to drill, then hit the other end with a hammer. He'd screw in the drill bit a little by turning the handle, which has an interior ratchet, then hit it again, and turn, and repeat until he'd drilled a hole. "It was hard," he said. These days, he said, it's done with electric drills.

Now that kind readers' thirst for knowledge of antique telephone lineman masonry drills has been slaked, it's time to look at this week's Mystery Artifact. I try to alternate easy and hard ones, and this week I think we have an easy one. Take your best guess, and good luck!

WINNER'S LIST: 8/3/09: erksnerks 8/10/09: Larissa 8/17/09: no winner 8/24/09: erksnerks, (2) 8/31/09: erksnerks, (3); Larissa, (2) 9/7/09: no winner; honorable mention to goblue18 9/14/09: erksnerks (4), Larissa (3), Janice A., Edward V. 9/21/09: a2dancelady, Mark Maynard, Creative Use of an Orangutan award to Lisa Bashert 9/28/09: erksnerks (5), Lisa Bashert (1.5), suem, Cindy Heflin, 10/5/09: Lisa Bashert (2.5), cmadler; Obscure Edible Plant Historical Factoid award to Ed Vielmetti 10/12/09: no winner

Laura Bien is the author of the local history book "Stud Bunnies and the Underwear Club: Tales from the Ypsilanti Archives," to be published this winter. You can reach her at ypsidixit@gmail.com.

Mystery Artifact is published every Monday on AnnArbor.com.