Tony said the end maybe looks a little bit like any technical adapter, but that´s really speculative ;-)And this made me remember again a post on the Medieval Silkwork blog, where there are two pictures showing some sort of spooling/thread winding concoction. I have been idly speculating about this in relation to the London bobbin before, but now it makes even more sense to me.
Knitting is possible from an unwound skein, but it's pretty darn tricky (as you may know). Especially with wool that sticks to itself, it's all too easy to get major tangles, especially if the skein is allowed to move around at all. All you need is a few threads crossing others in the wrong spot and you're all set for major snarls.
Since I am using knitting as a modern relaxing hobby, which means that I am wiggling around a lot and dropping the ball of yarn and storing extra needles in the yarn cake and stuffing it into bags and so on and on, I am far from daring to try knitting from the skein. I am sure I could do it if I wanted to (or had to), but I prefer having a semi-foolproof yarn cake. I've had more than my fair share of snarls to untangle already, I'm sure - I will not go and invite more of them!