Anyone know what this thing is.

OK, going out on a limb here...…..my grandmother used to have something that looked a bit like that but it was hand-held and electric. It was a massager and the balls went around in a circle.

Mounted on a wall or a flat surface? On the wall, it might be a stomach massager, maybe? You could lean against it and turn the cranks. Perhaps it was supposed to massage away stomach flab or aid in digestion?

That's the best I can come up with.
 

Well the way I have it figured nothing is attached to the balls. They are there acting like a flywheel.

You have to remember that a rope usually is quite long. So I think the strands are already laid out a long way on a floor and are connected to that round portion and then manually twisted together by turning the handles. It would be a long and tiring process and probably involved two people. One holding and one twisting. It's called a Chubby Checker machine and only used in the summer.
 

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