What is It? Game 56

Hooray! Here is this week’s collaboration with What it it? blog: can you guess what this gruesome claw-like object is for?
Place your guess in the comment section. Please post no URL, let others play … No prize this week, so you’re playing for fun and bragging rights only.
For more clues, see: What is it? Blog. Good luck!
Update 3/14/08 0 – the answer is:
A coal lifting device, used when adding coal to a fire, it protects the hand from flames and also from contact with the coal, patented in 1896, number 567,087.






