Today's youth, it seems, are clueless when asked to identify the object. It was "cutting- edge technology" of my era. Yes, it was a cutter and it was used to cut or trim material from vanguard sheets to photos. "Old school" school teachers will remember it. They should also be very familiar with a picture like this one below:
Yes, these women -- teachers or office staff -- were stencilling (or cyclostyling) stuff like exam papers, study notes, office minutes, etc, etc on a mimeograph machine!
One blogger walked down memory lane in tribute to this awesome but very messy and noisy machine, which first emerged in the 19th century:
http://www.kristakennedy.net/ccr633/bdkuebri/page/2/
Test your youngsters too on this object below:
It's fully automatic and needs no electricity! But you'll need strong legs (for squatting if you are not sitting on a stool) and strong hands.
The final mystery object is this one:
I chose this one because it looks similar to my first reel-to-reel tape recorder, an Aiwa (from Japan). It "gobbled up" D-sized batteries, ie, it was so power-hungry I needed a stock of fresh batteries to keep it going. And the fragile magnetic reel tape kept breaking or got chewed up inside the recording head unit.
I then learnt to splice and repair the broken tapes with a special kit.
But with this device, I could finally record my favourite pop songs, even if the music quality was lo-fi. Later, I had machines (still reel-to-reel) that ran on electricity, and the sound quality grew better. But my wallet grew lighter too. Anyway, thanks for the memory, dear Aiwa.
Here's one museum's tribute to the playback/recording devices of yesteryear:
http://www.bentoncountymuseum.org/exhibitions/sound/recording.cfm
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