Posted 5 years ago
fortapache
(3417 items)
Picked this up at an antique mall today. It was my first outing in 3 weeks as I have been putting together a new shed on my few days off. As the shed was completed just in time for the first snow I was able to go down the hill today and found this thing whatever it is.
It is a 44 inch long pole with a 10 inch piece of steel on it. Only 2 1/2 inches of the blade extends beyond the handle. That part has been sharpened although the point is rounded.
I am thinking it is on a pole, or more like a long handle, to give the user some distance. It would either be something hot like boiling water or caustic like lye. Or perhaps an animal. OK let us get to the mystery solving.
I wanted to that a stab at it!!! But I don't have a clue!!
Stuff
Thank you very much stuff. We shall see if someone has a clue.
looks like it was meant to plant into the ground, to help follow a property line, before a fence was built?
Thank you very much truthordare. Could be agricultural. Had not thought of that.
A dibble??
Thank you very much Iptools. It could be.
Consadibble ?
First thing I think is like a garden hoe, or maybe weed wacker.. then I think of the sharp end but then why would it be rounded on the tip.. hmm... some kind of hand made saw.. not sure what things may have been called many years ago. Or even know the name of gardening things.. I tried...
If it were smaller i would think a shank, but I believe it is way to big.. like j thought how they threw something sharp into water to catch fish. Don't laugh.
I would say what you have here is an old fruit harvest knife. Used to reach up and cut apples, oranges etc off a tree where you can't reach. I have one similar up in the rafters somewhere because I went to a pole basket for picking my oranges that are up high.
fhrjr2's suggestion seems pretty sensible to me though I admit I've no actual true idea...a tool like that would probably be handy for helping harvest fruit from trees, whether from the ground beneath or on a ladder...??
Thank you very much WideAwake. Hard to say how sharp the blade was. I think for fishing the blade would be more of a spike.
Thank you very much fhrjr2. Let me look it up. The blade seems too short but that is possible.
AnythingObscure I have no idea either. I try to match up the guesses with google images. No definite no's or yes's yet.
Fh, has a good answer
@ wideawake4 it is a good answer but I need some matching examples to bak it up. I am thinking it is homemade to do something unknown.
I need to try to see if I can find something on line. Now it is just bugging me. I'll be back..
Does the end part the one hickey come off and it can swing around??
Well now that I think about it.. I feel like a it could used for alot of things. I found a couple things on line that look very close. But if I say that would be cheating right??? I'm into this game now. Hmmmm
A hand made brush axe?????
Wide Awake looking it up good as I am looking for other examples as evidence. The people where I bought it want to know what it is too.
Not a pleasant thought, but it may be a user-made flensing knife, which is a tool used in the butchering of whales. In pictures, the long-handled ones were used to make a circumferential cut around the whale to begin peeling the blubber, which would explain the sharpened blade with a rounded tip (so as not to cut into the meat).
The reason I don't think it's for agricultural harvesting is that typically any extended-reach harvesting tool needs an anvil of some sort for the blade to bear down on or the tree branch would get ragged and damaged. Imagine the speed and skill required to cleanly slice through the stem of a fruit with a bare blade on the end of a 4-ft pole, not to mention how sharp the blade would need to be (for short-handled harvesting knives, the user's thumb serves as the anvil).
There are a few tools here that resemble the posters. I would say Dev_Komatsu is c0rrrect.
https://www.google.ca/search?sxsrf=ACYBGNS06UtdbVC5eb98tbX0LQ6WJTlgHA:1576276171826&q=flensing+tool&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiFl6iq1rPmAhVBOKwKHSRcBm0QsAR6BAgKEAE&biw=1918&bih=922
I don't mean the posters are tools - that just isn't right.
I'm not even close to being convinced.
Interesting but I need to see a closer match before I can confirm it.
I'll have to find the video and the pictures I had found..
I look forward to it WideAwake.
I think it is a scouting/defense walking stick that some adventurous teenage boys made of barnyard scraps. I see the metal had another hole drilled in it previously so it must have been used for something else like farm equipment before it became this tool or weapon.
I think Tex is getting close. It could be a "California legal" assault weapon.
What about antique forged froe.. shingle sheer, froe wedge.. looks close. Except the end you can extend..