Architectural star

Took this photo simply because I was thinking about my brother this afternoon ( I mean yesterday afternoon - that's what happens when you are up the whole night without a second's sleep!) - and he was an architect, who tended to spend a lot of his time doing research on historic buildings, especially as I believe he was out of work quite a lot of the time. His real passion was methodically and meticulously researching until he had found the very last "piece of the puzzle". Some of you may have seen these metal stars before, maybe in a craft store - or maybe you've noticed them on the outside walls of some old building. Later, I will add some information about them, but I need to get to bed pretty soon, as it's 8:15 a.m. and I was unable to get to sleep last night. Unfortunately, I feel wide awake, despite being extremely tired : )

Also known as Masonry Stars, they were originally used as reinforcement for brick walls. It was difficult finding information about these on the Internet, but here are a few comments found on the following website:

www.apartmenttherapy.com/chicago/good-questions/chi-good-...

"These are the stars that are found on the sides of old brick buildings. There is a long metal rod that would serve as part of the support of the building itself, and these were a sort of "finial" for the outside where the rod ends."

"They are decorative ends for tie rods. when still in use, you can see the bolt that screws on to the end of the threaded rod. tie rods were used to hold the walls of brick buildings together"

"The stars are just decorative, and basically big washers."

"Cast same as the originals, from originals, you can buy naturally rusty reproductions that can still perform that same task as well as having countless other uses—decoratively speaking"