More than 150 readers correctly identified the What Is It? above as a set of cut glass rests for carving utensils. The rests were used during formal dinners to protect the tablecloth from stains.

The volume of responses makes it impossible to list everyone who wrote, but there were a few interesting answers worth noting:

Noelle B. Young of Corea recalled these rests being used during her childhood in Belgium, where they were known as “porte-couteaux.” Theo Pozzy of Bangor also mentioned the French name and pointed out the European origins of the knife rests. G. Helga Walsh of Levant remembered using plate-metal rests as a child in Munich, where she called them “messer-bank.”

Dorothy Nodine of Jonesboro wrote, “With a truly elegant dinner table setting in the palmy days of my youth, one or two of these would be next to the place of the host, who took pride in his carving. He would use them to hold the carving knives when they were not in use. … He thus avoided staining the damask tablecloth, the pride of the hostess.

“It brings back fond memories of long gone Thanksgiving dinners when we had 35 family and friends feasting on two turkeys,” she concluded.

Thank you for the tremendous response and so many wonderful stories of bygone ages.

Mail guesses of this week’s What Is It? (below) to Robert Croul, RR 2, Box 3650, Carmel, Maine 04419. The item will be identified in this section two weeks from today.