Old home, what is this!

In a 1905 Victorian build. These are within numerous bedrooms at the baseboard. Curiosity has piqued my interest. What are these?

I am guessing. Heat register?

It is a heat register

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Sort of what I was leaning towards, thanks for the confirmation!

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love old school registers. you can get some pretty cool vintage & modern laser cut ones on etsy

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I’ll have to look into some for my old home. They’ve since all been replaced with some interesting 70s and 80s styled ones. Not my favorite

Exterior walls only?
I have these in my 1887 and are fresh air returns. House originally had a gravity system, and is now forced air. The supply utilizes all the original large grillwork at the registers, and all four bedrooms on the second floor, along with the mainfloor kitchen also uses the shown vents… all in the exterior walls (balloon framing).

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It’s an old (ancient) register, but to my tired eyes it looks decorative at this point. I don’t see any openings behind it. From the photo, it appears to be mounted directly to the baseboard. Are there openings I can’t see in the photo?

The air could have dropped into the balloon framing, and thus to ducts under the floor,
eventually reaching (cold air sinks gravity) the furnance.

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