I recently had the opportunity to pick through a large estate of dominantly railway related antiques here in SW Ontario. The estate was from an early collection beginning in the 1950s in which a large number of railway items were accumulated from old stations, depots, etc. There were a few hundred insulators included in the mix and a large collection of old general store type antiques, but these three pieces probably got me more excited than anything else.

As I understand it, these are zinc electrodes from an early "crows foot" or "gravity" battery cell - a type of Daniell cell. I'd heard of these before but had never actually encountered any. A quick google search seems to reveal a fair bit about the cell design and indicates that these original zinc electrodes are quite scarce. These three appear to be "new old stock" and show no significant signs of wear or use.

A great "go with" for the collection, and something else to keep an eye out for.