Old forged Mystery Chopper Tool what’s your guess ?

[Idahawk]

Picked this year ago. Paid $5 for it cause I like interesting tools. All I did to it was just clean the Blade up on my industrial Rockwell wire wheel and LO oiled the handle. The Spade blade is knife thin! My initial thought was a Blubber knife from whaling era. Also thought maybe possibly a Weapon. There are huge push knives similar. Pretty sure it originated -was forged in the states. One person said it was maybe a Peet Moss knife. Honestly not sure. What’s your thoughts?

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Definitely not anything whaling related. Almost looks like someone modified a pulp hook.

 

[DocJD]

possibly a Weapon.

IDK , maybe, but I'd expect it would be difficult to use effectively .

Unlike most push daggers I've seen , there's nothing to prevent this rotating in your hand when the blade hits resistance .

Whatever it is , it's certainly interesting !

 

[DocJD]

pulp hook.

Yes ...and for those of us not familiar with such ? Maybe a pic and purpose ?

 

[Idahawk]

This thing is actually pretty stable in hand. With good grip you could slash with it and plunge effectively. I didn’t sharpen it. Just knocked the rust off. Sharpened up it would be pretty lethal cutting tool. I’ve tossed around ideas for a year. With 2 hands if needed you could trench with it. I’m 50 50 on it being some agricultural tool a blacksmith made for some special purposes or a crazy hand Halberd of some sort.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Yes ...and for those of us not familiar with such ? Maybe a pic and purpose ?

https://www.google.com/search?q=pulp+hook

 

[Danke42]

Looks like a garden tool.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

I swear I've seen something like this somewhere before but forget what it was for. Closest thing I can pull up online right now is some similar tools like this, but no one in those locations seems to know what those are for, either.

 

[tltt]

It's a Dibble, used for planting bulbs. Also sometimes called a Civil War Push Dagger by scammers on ebay .

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintage-flat-sided-garden-dibble-151133664 .

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

It's a Dibble, used for planting bulbs. Also sometimes called a Civil War Push Dagger by scammers on ebay .

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintage-flat-sided-garden-dibble-151133664 .

A dibble is possible, but not definitive. It seems a lot of trouble to go through for a tool that can be made in so much simpler ways.

 

[Square_peg]

It's a Dibble, used for planting bulbs. Also sometimes called a Civil War Push Dagger by scammers on ebay .

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintage-flat-sided-garden-dibble-151133664 .

That makes sense. In a farm shop it would have been a simple and ordinary thing to modify a hay hook or pulp hook into a dibble.

The OP is in Idaho I presume. It could have been made for planting potatoes.

 

[Idahawk]

A tatter planter! Could be. Like a lot of tools we run across. It’s a bit of a head scratcher. Appreciate everyone’s input

 

[not2sharp]

I swear I've seen something like this somewhere before but forget what it was for. Closest thing I can pull up online right now is some similar tools like this, but no one in those locations seems to know what those are for, either.

It looks like a picket pin (stick it in the ground then tie your horse to it).

n2s

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

It looks like a picket pin (stick it in the ground then tie your horse to it).

n2s

That seems exceptionally unlikely. It lacks almost all of the features that a proper picket pin would have, making it a very poor tool for the task if so.

 

[Idahawk]

Here is a Circa 1870s Indian Wars Picket pen. Cavalry Soldiers carried one in their saddle bag. If out on the prairie.

 

[DocJD]

https://www.google.com/search?q=pulp+hook

Yeah ...design is much like I'm familiar with on some "hay hooks" . Used a pair of those for many years .

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Yeah ...design is much like I'm familiar with on some "hay hooks" . Used a pair of those for many years .

Yes they're often used interchangeably, with the main difference being that there are pulp hooks with different orientations or available with replaceable tips, while hay hooks are basically always the normal "perpendicular orientation, non-replaceable tip" variety. But hay hooks always fall under a category shared by pulp hooks, and so the latter is a more inclusive term.

 

[oldmanwilly]

I found this described as a "forged dibble" on a garden tool site.

View attachment 2336385
View attachment 2336388
Maybe OP's is an older/regional variation or self-modified by a prior owner. The one in the pics is pretty thick; possibly enough material to flatten it out.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

I found this described as a "forged dibble" on a garden tool site.

View attachment 2336385
View attachment 2336388
Maybe OP's is an older/regional variation or self-modified by a prior owner. The one in the pics is pretty thick; possibly enough material to flatten it out.

That one seems to have been inspired chiefly by dibbles made by repurposing old shovel handles, but inspired by pulp hooks and their mode of construction to make it easier for them to produce with their shop's particular tools and methods.

There's so many variants of dibbles/dibblers that I would never discount the possibility that this is one, but at the same time the broad-bladed nature of it makes it similarly very likely to have been some other form of tool, and so for similar reasons I am wary of stating that it is "definitely" a dibble with any sense of assuredness.

 

[oldmanwilly]

FortyTwoBlades definitely agree with you. My Opa (farmer/rancher) modified many of his tools to fit his specific purposes, as do other people I know in the ag business. Because of this fact of life I hesitate to declare what OP's tool is with any authority until we hear from the person who made it, however unlikely that may be.