How Old Is This Wrought Iron Hammer

[KentuckyBlackBird]

A friend found this in his field and gave it to me. I rehandled it with a new old stock handle that had some finish missing, so I “aged” it to look like it does. My question is this, does anyone know if this thing can be accurately dated? If so, how old is it? Thanks in advance.

 

[not2sharp]

Whatever it may have been it no longer is. I would be better to consider it a new item.

N2s

 

[Brent Halverson]

It is called a riveting hammer. If you look in old tool and hardware catalogs you will see them listed. Some catalogs list them as being "Tinner's" riveting hammers. All the material missing from yours is also information missing. I would ask your friend where he found it and you could look up it's history and see what used to be there, maybe a farm or if a home was nearby you could see who used to live there and what they did for a living. If you are going to be collecting old tools you may as well start educating yourself and become your own expert. It is hard to date modern hammer types like this by material as cast steel and wrought iron both were in use all the way through the 19th century. Bessemer process steel was invented right before the civil war but it took WWII to end the general use of crucible/cast steels and wrought iron. Tools were expensive things through WWII and back in the day someone with the means and material may have made themselves a lot of the tools they needed instead of having to come up with money for manufactured ones. I have a lot of hand-made tools laying around here that are not that old, I am sure some of them are post WWII, but some are also definitely pre-1900, I am talking hammers, chisels, wrenches, and anything else you can imagine. So unless you can find a likely history of who threw or dropped your hammer where it was found, you may be out of luck.

 

[KentuckyBlackBird]

Yep,! I know it’s a riveting hammer. I’m pretty familiar with modern tools , just not wrought iron. FWIW, I am fairly educated on the pieces I own. No need for the condescension. I merely asked if anyone could help date this piece. All that typing you did helped zero. If you didn’t know, why respond other than to be a blowhard? Your reply had zero value.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

As far as the use of wrought iron you're likely looking at mid-1800s or earlier. More precise dating than that is a little difficult since there weren't major changes in the form of the tool between then and the colonial period, and the best way of dating it beyond that would be provenance, such as where it was found and the history of the location of that find.

 

[KentuckyBlackBird]

As far as the use of wrought iron you're likely looking at mid-1800s or earlier. More precise dating than that is a little difficult since there weren't major changes in the form of the tool between then and the colonial period, and the best way of dating it beyond that would be provenance, such as where it was found and the history of the location of that find.

Thank you sir. It was found in the area where a barn had been. But that is about all, dating that is the hard part. Much appreciated.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

If you research the area (perhaps check with a local historical society!) you may be able to get an idea of when the structure was present. If not, you may not be able to date it any more precisely.

 

[KentuckyBlackBird]

I feel like it isn’t something one would find every day even if you were actively hunting for things like that. From the looks of it, it never struck anything. It took washing repeatedly more than anything, to get the funk off of it.