wanna show you guys a cool thing

[cnladue]

Can anybody guess at what this VERY OLD thing is?

piece is apx 4 inches long and up close of one end

[Robert]

It looks sort of like a section of buried cable... either structural or electrical.

But I have no idea, to be honest. Where did you find it?

[Rhubarb]

It does look like a dug up cable. Kinda favor's 4/0 UV feeder cable with a steel core. I work for a Company that manufactures all types of electrical wire.

[eagames]

It's the worlds oldest piece of coax.... 15 outers make the outer shield for the one conductor in the center LOL
It was part of Fred Flintstones cable tv.

In any case my vote is some sort of cable.

I think Jaws bit that cable and got shocked!

[cnladue]

ea you crack me up!the story goes like this, my great great grandfather was a ship captain in the last half of the 1800s ,on the east coast.Around this time the first TRANSATLANTIC CABLE was lay ed and worked for a short time!My gr gr gramps was on one of the ships that pulled the cable up and spliced it,Pieces of 4 inches long of the pulled up cable were cut for each crew man to take home a piece for posterityit was passed down to my great grandma Mary LaDue than to her son Carey noel ladue then to my dad noel ladue ,now me.

[Bob P]

Very cool story. The guys were on the right track!

[Robert]

Wow, what an amazing story! Quite a piece of history you have there.

[KurtS]

What a great personal story! It did have a ocean-weathered look to it, so I actually guessed it was a transatlantic cable section. Very cool piece of history!

[eagames]

That is a great story!

Also a neat thing to keep

[Dick]

Carol, was that the "tow-cable" they used to "pull you around the lake"?
I figured it was some kind of transmission cable, fro your description of it. The flexible outer coating, (steel wire,) was to give it strength, and flexibility, while protecting the inner wire, (probably copper). The multi-layer coating was to water-proof the whole thing. Coax has a shielding around the core, but it is not for strengthening the cable. It is the ground return. Outside of that shielding is the rubber, or now-days, plastic serves to waterproof it.
Dick

[cnladue]

THE OUTSIDE IS GUTA PERCH MAYBE SPELLED WRONG AND THE STUFF INSIDE IS PROBABLY SOME KIND OF HEMP,BUT HERE IS THE MYSTERY,THERE HAS NOT YET BEEN FOUND ANY CABLE SECTIONS WITH THIS ONES WIRE COUNT.I AM STILL RESEARCHING WHAT EXACT CABLE THIS WAS.ANY BODY GOT ANY IDEAS?

[KurtS]

I looked at some photos of other transatlantic cable sections and they all have a similar outer reinforcing. Perhaps these inner wires are just twisted/distorted and hard to compare to other photos? It strikes me as a cable laid in water reinforced to take considerable stress...would a land line have that much reinforcement?

[cnladue]

I BELIVE THE LAND LINES DID NOT USE ANY GUTTA PERCH,BUT THE DUDE THAT IS THE WORLDS EXPERT ON THE CABLE BILL BURNS TOLD ME IT IS A STRANGE NUMBER OF THE OUTER STEEL ,IT HAS 7 SMALL COPPER WIRES IN THE MIDDLE AND 15 STEEL WIRES.