Possible Colonial fireplace tool?

[deldave]

This was found in lower Delaware MD with Garrett 250. It rang out loud and clear at 7-8". When I removed the handle from the ground the wrought iron shaft fell out! The odd thing is that the handle could have been a simple turned piece of solid brass, but it is hollow and made from many pieces. I hope this will help someone with more knowledge help to date it. Thanks, deldave

 

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[releventchair]

[video]http://americanpublichousereview.com/cocktails/index.flip.html[/video]

Could have heated drinks. Flip was a common one.Looks short for a poker.

 

[bronco]

Nice find

Medical use?

 

[Sentrom]

I agree with the flip dog, it was a short iron used to heat the drink called a flip or toddy. The end was heated in the coals until it was very hot then plunged into the drink, which sizzled. The hot iron does something with the sugar in the rum which gave it a caramel flavor. They had a tear shaped or pointed end.

 

[deldave]

Any idea of when it would have been used? I think the key is how the handle is made of separate pieces and held together with straps. What do you think?

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

I rarely reply to a What-Is-It post when I do not know the answer. However, Deldave sent me a PM asking me to comment on this object, using Logic.

I must begin by saying I've never seen an object quite like it before now. So, all I can do here is apply the logic I've learned in riddling out an object's ID by the characteristics of its shape/form, and the material it is made of.

Very often, an object's shape is not "accidental" -- but rather, it has a particular shape because that shape was necessary for the object to be able to perform its intended function.

I notice that the iron shaft has:
1A- a more-or-less circular double-swell at one end,
1B- the first swell is much smaller than the second swell.
2- a third swell, which is ball-shaped, where it fits against the brass handle, and
3- the part of the shaft which would be inside the handle (except for its tip) is somewhat angular-bodied (flat-sided) rather than cylindrical, and
4- the iron shaft is thicker near the second swell, then tapers down as it approached the swell in front of the handle.

Each of those five characteristics MUST be there for a purpose or a reason. I think characteristic #3, the shaft being flat-sided for most of its length inside the hollow handle, indicates the iron shaft was blacksmith-forged, and is therefore more likely to be from the 1800s (or earlier).

I can think of three reasons for the brass handle being hollow:
1- to conserve brass,
2- to make the handle lighter than a solid handle would be,
2- to release heat much more quickly.

The object may indeed be what Releventchair thinks, a "flip dog" for heating drinks. But I lean away from that ID, for three reasons:
1- there is no apparent purpose for a "flip dog" to have this object's double-swell at its end.
2- as Sentrom mentioned, the "business end" of a flip was heated red-hot in the coals of a fire. Making a piece of iron red-hot AMONGST WOOD-FIRE ASHES causes the iron to become "carbonized" -- which makes it nearly immune to rust-corrosion. But the outer end of this object's iron shaft is significantly rust-corroded.
3- this object is not shaped like what is seen in any photos of antique flip I could find on the internet.
See the photo at VPR: Ostrum: Flip Dog and the Raisin Seeder
Also at The Historians: TOOLS OF THE TRADE: AT LOGGERHEADS WITH THE TODDY

For anybody here who is unfamiliar with woodfire-ash "carbonized" iron:
Some of you may have had the experience of digging out a civil war campsite firepit and finding some square-nails that came out of the ground completely unrusted. They were in a wooden board that was burned in the fire, fell into the ashes while they were red-hot, and thus got "carbonized."

The only thing I can think of that this object even MIGHT be is a type of soldering-iron. I'd also thought it might be a stovepipe-damper control, but those must have a way to grip the circular flat disc inside the pipe... and this object seems to have no provision for doing that.

As I said at the start of this post, I do not know for certain what this object is. I just hope some of the information in this post is helpful to you folks... and that it might put somebody on the right track to eventually identifying the object with certainty.

 

[deldave]

I certainly thank you for your opinion. I was hoping for a colonial artifact and I think this may be my first. I can say that where the iron object ends there is so much corrosion that this may actually have been the middle of the shaft. Maybe a decorative part of the shaft where the tool may have originally broken. For now I am happy with what I know but will continue to investigate. Thanks, deldave