Guess It What Is This Thing?
What Was This Strange Household Object Actually Used For?
A heavy glass dome with a hole in the top, found in sideboards and attics everywhere. Three plausible answers, and one that is correct.
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Curiosity
The catch-all hub for the question that starts most good conversations: what on earth is that? Mystery objects with a real answer, price challenges, myth-or-fact rounds and plain-language explanations of things you have used for years without thinking about.
Guess It Featured
Guess It Guess the Price
Which Cost More? Eight Price Comparisons From the Past
Not exact prices, which nobody remembers reliably, but the comparisons: which of two things cost more at the time, and what that says about the period.
How It Works Antiques & Collectibles
How to Read a Hallmark in Four Steps
The tiny marks stamped into silver tell you the metal, the town, the year and the maker. Here is how to read them, and what the same marks look like when faked.
Explainer Can You Spot the Scam?
Six Warning Signs in a Suspicious Message, and What to Do Instead
How to recognise the pressure tactics that almost every scam relies on, described in general terms, with a simple three-step habit that defeats all of them.
Topics in Curiosity
All topics →- Guess the Price Historic prices, adjusted comparisons and the cost of ordinary things across time. 1 article
- Antiques & Collectibles What makes something collectable, how to check a mark, and what really sells. 1 article
- Which Is Worth More? Two objects, side by side, one clear answer and an explanation of why. 1 article
- Can You Spot the Scam? Educational warning-sign spotting, using safe illustrative examples rather than working templates. 1 article
- Everyday Objects: Then & Now Ordinary objects compared across decades, with the design reasons for each change. 1 article
- What Is This Thing? Unidentified objects with a real, checkable answer and the story of what it solved. 1 article
- Everyday Science Plain explanations of ordinary phenomena, with no hand-waving. 1 article
- Myth or Fact? Widely repeated claims, checked one at a time, including the ones that turn out to be true. 1 article
- Strange Jobs & Professions Occupations that existed, occupations that still exist, and what the work actually involved. 1 article
- How Does That Work? Mechanisms explained with diagrams: locks, zips, engines, escalators and the rest. 1 article
Latest in Curiosity
Which Is Worth More?
Which Is Worth More? Six Pairs and the Reason Behind Each
Two similar objects, very different values. Six head-to-head comparisons that explain how condition, rarity, provenance and demand actually interact.
Then & Now Everyday Objects: Then & Now
Ten Everyday Objects That Changed Shape for a Specific Reason
Plug pins, bottle bases, milk cartons and the humble pencil. Ten familiar objects whose current shape solves a problem you have probably never noticed.
Explainer Everyday Science
Ten Everyday Questions With Surprisingly Good Answers
Why metal feels colder than wood, why the sky changes colour, why ice is slippery and six more. Plain explanations, including where the honest answer is that it is complicated.
Myth or Fact?
Twelve Things You Have Heard All Your Life. How Many Are Actually True?
Twelve claims that everybody repeats, checked one at a time. Four are true, five are false, and three are the interesting answer: partly.
Countdown Strange Jobs & Professions
Ten Jobs That Existed in Living Memory and Do Not Now
Switchboard operators, lift attendants, typesetters and the man who lit the streetlamps. Ten vanished occupations, what the work involved, and what replaced each one.
How It Works How Does That Work?
How a Lock Actually Works, and Six Other Mechanisms Worth Knowing
The pin tumbler lock, the zip, the escalator corner, the thermos and the ballpoint pen. Seven everyday mechanisms explained, each with the single clever idea that makes it work.