Mystery Tool?

Hi All,

This came in the weekends car boot haul:

Some sort of heavy punch pleir with broken spring handle return.

No real idea what it is, my only thought is a tool for putting the ends on the old large leather belting for machinery?

Any other ideas?

Martin

That is a neat one, Martin. I have no clue what it is for and will be happy to learn when someone does identify it!

Pete

Martin - just possibly its for putting identification notches into livestock ears? - on our farm we had various single-notch pliers but never saw a multiple set though.

Dave

Train return ticket punch. The first leg of the journey the ticket was punched and the second leg the ticket was collected.

Martin

Hi,

Martin C, The punch is way bigger than the whole ticket, the head is 51mm across! BTW, did you get my PM?

Dave Martin, no way that I see for livestock and have showed it to the farmer who rents my field.

Martin

My guess is that it's an Inspector's Stamp for endorsing something like leather hides.

Whatever it is it looks as if it does its thing to the edge of a sheet and it makes holes that don't seem to be functionally useful. In that sense the holes are rather like those made by a ticket punch. The flattened top and bottom of the pliers might be to make it easier to slide in to mark sheets that have been stacked.

Don't bet the farm on this suggestion - I'm too often wrong!

Cheers,

Dave

Yes, I'd go for some form of large sheet myself. Whether it's hides, cork, rubber, felt, card or what is anyone's guess but the latter ones would tend to be made on a continuous process so less need for individual inspection. Leather has my money!

Murray

There's an Australian firm, now called Bainbridge that make ear marking pliers. Looks like they may have an association with Dominion

**LINK**

Thanks Peak - as I suggested I thought they were ear-marking pliers and from the chart it's a combination of AZ and a CW variation. It could of course be used for marking hides etc. but I'm pretty sure its for cattle earmarking.

Looks plausible. "CX AZ", then?

From here.

Damn that things weird, looks like some sort of punch marker for a belt buckle.

Clearly whoever, or whatever made it took a lot of consideration over it's peculiar shape. It's definitely a very industry specific type of tool, possibly a one off. I cant imagine alot of them were made in any case.

Michael W

Edited By Michael Walters on 07/06/2016 13:22:31

Googling for Earmarking pliers and selecting images provides (slightly queasy-making) confirmation.