I can see not only gathering eggs in it, but being able to wash them and hold them while cooking.

Vintage versions were generally made from iron wire with hot-dip galvanizing. Quite frequently the "galvanizing" had rather high lead content (to make it stick to the wire better). This construction makes them unsuitable for any cooking use due to lead toxicity.

More recent ones have been "electoplated" or aluminum wire, which perhaps reduces any risk of metal poisoning, but I never knew of anyone (rational) using the device in question for cooking. The easy manipulation from one shape to another makes them completely unsuitable for dipping, cooking, or carrying anything hot enough to be painful in case of spilling.

The decorative version Bill has likely would not remain bright and shiny if boiled.

There are much better devices for any "cooking" use.

Eggs should NEVER BE WASHED, unless it's done immediately before cracking the shell. The mucous coating normally present inhibits air transfer through the shell, which is quite porous, and a "washed egg" will spoil very much more rapidly.

When gathering of eggs for market on family farms was common, a small pad of steel wool was a permissible method for removing "bits of chicken stuff" from the eggs when gathered, but even that was used only to remove the "big chunks" that might keep the eggs from standing up (small end down¹) in the crate.

Sometime ca. late '40s to very early '50s, it was common for market buyers to recommend dipping fresh eggs in "water glass" (sodium/potassium silicate) to form a true "air tight" coating on the shell to permit longer storage life; but that material has since been listed as "toxic" in food use and is no longer easy to obtain. Commercial "egg factories" quite probably use some replacement coating; but I've been unable to find out what - if any - "sealer" is now used.

A washed egg is a rotten egg - or will be in a couple of days.

¹ A "traditional egg" has one end that's a little more "pointy" than the other. The egg contains an "air sac" in the round end. If stored with the pointy end up, the bouyancy of the air sac makes it mix more quickly with the "eggy stuff" and promotes more rapid "spoilage." Commercial egg buyers were very insistent that the eggs be brought in "points down."

"Modern chickens" have been selectively bred to lay "round eggs" that will roll down wire collection tracks into the box, so it's often very difficult, for the eggs found in retail markets now, to tell which end the air is in without candling the egg. It's possible that better refrigeration makes it less important now(?).

I understand they're working on hens that lay square eggs for more compact shipping; but thus far the hens object.

John