Pair of Vintage Ship's Wheels. One is metal with wood handle overlaps, and the other is entirely brass. The all brass one has a label attached  that reads "Lobster Boat Wheel Circa 1920's." 

Condition: Commensurate with age. 

Sizes: 17 1/2 x 17 1/2 in., 16 x 16 in. 

A ship’s wheel or boat’s wheel is a device used aboard a ship, boat, submarine, or airship, with which a helmsman steers the vessel and controls its course. It usually has at least six spokes radiating from a central hub and sometimes as many as twelve depending on the size of the wheel, but customarily eight, allowing for easy maneuverability when turning the wheel rapidly. Together with the rest of the steering mechanism, it forms part of the helm (the term “helm” can be used to mean the wheel alone, or the entire mechanism by which the rudder is controlled, depending on the context). It is connected to a mechanical, electric servo, or hydraulic system which alters the horizontal angle of the vessel’s rudder relative to its hull. In some modern ships the wheel is replaced with a simple toggle that remotely controls an electro-mechanical or electro-hydraulic drive for the rudder, with a rudder position indicator presenting feedback to the helmsman. Until the invention of the ship’s wheel, the helmsman relied on a tiller (a horizontal bar fitted directly to the top of the rudder post) or a whipstaff (a vertical stick acting on the arm of the ship’s tiller). Near the start of the 18th Century, a large number of vessels appeared using the ship’s wheel design, but to this day historians are unclear when the approach was first used, or who invented the classic eight-spoke design that became the de facto style.

Commensurate with age.