what was this tool used for

[coxy]

its a nose picker for paul bunyan and his blue ox :D :D

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

You're not allowing your mind to be flexible.  :D

He told you Dave.  :D

[kelLOGg]

kelLOGg,

I'll see your slab pile and raise you one  ;D.

I'll raise you two! About 60 hours of sawing in this pile. Those are 30 footers on top.



 

WDH, so you have 1 more slab than I do? ;D  Dave wins. He's got 2 more. :D

[kelLOGg]

It is for picking pumpkins and the like including bowling balls.

Aha, that's where I've seen it. In the old days of bowling the pinsetters would hop from alley to alley picking up stray gutter balls. It came out of favor after the pock marks in the alleyways messed up the game. That's why there are so few of these tools around anymore.;D

[WDH]

Seems like my slab pile is reproducing  :-\.

[Peter Drouin]

Well MMan what is it? ;D

[kevin19343]

Everyone seems to be gravitating toward farm use for this item.
I live on a farm and I've never seen anything like this.
Maybe some industrial tool of some kind?

[Magicman]

It's obvious that it did not work very well because they would be hanging out at flea markets everywhere.   ;D     

[beenthere]

I live on a farm and I've never seen anything like this.

If farm, I'm thinking 100+ years ago. .. and agree with MM, not a popular tool.

Many inventions were short lived, and even is true today with some of the 'tools' we see popping up here and there for garden applications. They come and they go.

[Texas Ranger]

Picking up stalks of some nature.  Silage?

[sandhills]

Well whatever your picking up better not be very heavy and you better not have to lift it very high.

[WDH]

I think that it would work nicely for removing elephant poop from the lawn. 

[Rocky_Ranger]

This contraption has been bugging me ever since I first laid eyes on it; I am not sure it was used to "pick up" anything.  How about this - it is/was used to "shock wheat or corn or other head crop.  By its design, it held a consistent measure of product; maybe for tying off or wrapping another stalk to tie it off... The offset meant either end could be used (no left-handed hammer here), and you wouldn't get your rope or shock shucked... or something like that.......

[sandhills]

So far you have the best guess in my book, I never thought of that but it makes more sense than anything.

[beenthere]

I agree that it has some good possibilities for using it to gather oats/wheat to bundle,  and then maybe hold the bundle for tying, before standing bundles up to make a shock.

Could be it was an attempt to take the place of the hand scythe and cradle which cut and gathered. Told about in this article with pics.
http://thelibrary.org/lochist/periodicals/bittersweet/sp74g.htm

[Nomad]

     Is that an adjustment bolt on the left side?  Maybe to change the closed or open dimensions?  If not, what does it do? 

[Magicman]

My thoughts are that that (Tom) is to adjust the tines on that side so that they mesh instead of clash with the opposite tines.

[Rocky_Ranger]

After more studying (and a hot toddy), maybe for sorghum?  I know little about the old ways of making molasses, but have seen the presses and cookers laying about.

[LaneC]

rocky-ranger you may be on to something. Whenever we used to make home made syrup, you would always have a pile of sugar cane stacked by the smasher. You would reach down and grab as much as you could and put it beside you and then start feeding the stalks into the smasher. Maybe this tool could have been used to grab a bunch of stalks from the pile(you are elevated about 4 feet off the ground) and dump them beside you so you could put them in the smasher. The smasher is like the old time laundry squeezers. You use the tractor to turn the smasher and it squeezes the juice from the sugar cane. I could have used that tool for that, looking back and thinking about it now.

[Jeff]

Since Ron W used to see them quite often at auctions in the north, I'd highly doubt they had anything to do with sugar cane. No cane up here!

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

I'm not so sure it was meant to really pick up anything.

Could it be a tool to grasp and pull something off a wagon? Like bundle corn stalks? Bundled wheat?

[Dave Shepard]

I don't think it has anything to do with forking hay or grains. If you've ever done it, you'd know that thing would be very awkward. Also, what do you do with the bundle once you've grabbed it? You can't do anything but drag it around. With a pitchfork, you've got a light, easily maneuvered tool that you can toss stuff onto a wagon or into a threshing machine. I'm still with Jeff on the potato digger. You could clamp it over a hill of potatoes and you could pull and wrestle it out of the ground which should bring the potato plant with it.

[Rocky_Ranger]

Not sugar cane - Sorghum...  Sorghum molasses type.

[Woodhauler]

Maybe something to do with digging up plants for transplanting?

[luvmexfood]

It's potatoe digger for someone who doesn't know if they are coming or going. :D