Too funny! It is called a "mangle". My parents owned a motel and we used to launder all of our sheets, and before permanent press became widely available we used this mangle for pressing. I can't tell you the age of this, but do not expect it to give you good crisp seams. These were mainly used in laundry services that are only looking for a quick method to iron huge amounts of linens. We used ours in the early to mid 70's and it was old then.