When we moved into our new house, we expected some surprises but nothing quite like the discovery in the kitchen. Hidden away was a large metallic rack, about the size of an oven, unlike any kitchen tool we’d ever seen. Flat and ridged, it immediately made us wonder about its use. Was it a baking tray, part of an old appliance, or some kind of homemade contraption?

Curious, we asked friends and family and even posted on Reddit, but no one gave us a clear answer. Some guessed it was vintage cookware, others thought it might belong to furniture, and one neighbor suggested it could be a meat tenderizer though that seemed unlikely. The previous owners were just as baffled, having inherited it along with the house. This only deepened the mystery.