What Is It? Game 57

Yay! It’s time for our collaboration with What is it? blog: can you guess what this strange hammer is for?

Place your guess in the comment section. One guess per comment, but you can enter as many times as you’d like. Please post no URL, so others can play, too. You’re playing for a Free Neatorama T-Shirt. More clues at What is it? blog.

Good luck!

Update 4/11/08 - the answer is:

A banker’s check canceling hammer, used to mark checks after they’ve been cashed.
Congrats to ad who won the Free T-shirt!

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Posted on

April 10, 2008 at 4:06 am by Alex
Category: What Is It

54 Comments to "What Is It? Game 57"

anthony
April 10th, 2008 at 4:20 am
befor lego was made with plastic injection. they used to hit sheets of plastic really hard….with great acuracty……thousands of times over

this is one such LEGO punch

cookie
JJ
April 10th, 2008 at 4:37 am
no, it’s used to make hot cross buns
Zeon
April 10th, 2008 at 4:37 am
Its a hammer used to make impressions on objects, like hard plastic etc…
bob
April 10th, 2008 at 4:50 am
It’s clearly an 16th century relic of the Catholic Church, which was used to mark all members of the church so they would be assured entry into the pearly gates. It was frequently called “God’s Hall Pass” by critics.
Mindpimp
April 10th, 2008 at 4:51 am
Having waded through little Timmy’s exam paper for over an hour and failed to find /any/ correct answers, Mrs Williams reached for the correct-o-tron 2000 and decided to save herself time by just marking him as wrong.
Jeremy
April 10th, 2008 at 5:13 am
It’s used for extreme games of tic-tac-toe.
Jacky
April 10th, 2008 at 5:26 am
It is used by cowboys to brand their cattle
dede
April 10th, 2008 at 5:33 am
Van Hellsings first cross weapon against Vlad Dracul… which failed… but still a nice kittchen tool for extraordinary cookies… of course with a lot of garlic flavor… ( this was his second weapon hehe )
David Larsen
April 10th, 2008 at 5:54 am
I have several of those. I use them to crush the living shit out of the kids who won’t stay off my lawn.
sparge
April 10th, 2008 at 5:59 am
It is used to mark where the treasure is, silly!
Miss Cellania
April 10th, 2008 at 5:59 am
As an instrument of torture, that would leave a mark!
Shadowfirebird
April 10th, 2008 at 6:04 am
Device for marking a pat of butter?
bean
April 10th, 2008 at 6:09 am
It’s the lesser-known Philip’s head sledgehammer.
Oomi
April 10th, 2008 at 6:17 am
Something a shoemaker would use perhaps.

Or

It’s a little known fact that Bedrock was located in Florida and that’s Fred Flintstone’s voting hammer. No hanging chad-rocks.
empty-minded
April 10th, 2008 at 6:23 am
Thor joins the X-Men!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jerse
April 10th, 2008 at 6:34 am
It’s the tool that pirates use to mark where their treasure is buried on maps…
Paul in Cin City
April 10th, 2008 at 6:38 am
It’s a lumber marking hammer. Struck into the end of a log it ensures that the proper people get paid for the wood. I have an antique one that is the letter D for the last name of my family.
Jerse
April 10th, 2008 at 6:41 am
THAR BE ME TREASURE! (thwomp)
Nestor
April 10th, 2008 at 6:47 am
Uh! The mighty wafflemaker!
Jenny, Bloggess
April 10th, 2008 at 7:25 am
Two words:

Crucifiction pancakes.
Ellen
April 10th, 2008 at 7:30 am
It’s a shoe branding hammer
kc
April 10th, 2008 at 7:32 am
Leather tooling?
wil9000
April 10th, 2008 at 7:38 am
For those of you old enough to remember Old School Sesame Street, it’s the thing that “Cowboy X” used in the cartoon of the same name, marking everything in town, until a young boy asked him to stop. Then he said “From now on, I’ll be known as cowboy O”, and marked everything with an O. The punchline, which sticks with me is:

So the people of the town lived happily ever after….
because they really weren’t very smart.
Daveness
April 10th, 2008 at 7:38 am
It’s a hammer for marking trees. The mark indicates that the tree is owned by someone, and sometimes it means the tree is to be felled.
ad
April 10th, 2008 at 7:48 am
it is for bankers checks to be cancelled
pridesax
April 10th, 2008 at 7:55 am
it’s the early x-box shaper prototype
oshean
April 10th, 2008 at 8:05 am
When used this hammer perforates a check indicating that it has been paid by the drawee bank and cannot be renegotiated. It’s a canceled check stamp otherwise known as a bankers check canceling hammer.
T UPTO
April 10th, 2008 at 8:11 am
it’s a fancy meat tenderizer.
dan
April 10th, 2008 at 8:27 am
extreme tic tac toe
Lemons
April 10th, 2008 at 8:36 am
It’s used to mark those little crosses on communion wafers.
Joe H
April 10th, 2008 at 8:48 am
It’s a screwdriver for very large screws.
Mad Wet Squirrel
April 10th, 2008 at 9:24 am
Three Words:

Tic Tac PWNED!!
DrJones
April 10th, 2008 at 9:42 am
A simpler version of the boredom killer “maze pens.”
Randall
April 10th, 2008 at 9:42 am
Its not a hammer at all. This is a Frengle bitsetter for use in the delicate art of goat crossfertilization. I can only explain its use as ‘coercive nudging.’

Goats are complex animals.
Howard
April 10th, 2008 at 9:45 am
The very first Home Pregnancy Test. The other side has a minus sign.
anon
April 10th, 2008 at 10:20 am
Branding iron
Ali S.
April 10th, 2008 at 11:52 am
It my professors “X” (wrong answer) marker. He first dips it in sheeps blood and then invoking the powers of the Gods he then slams it down with such force on my papers that I feel the vibrations from the other side of the campus.
mark
April 10th, 2008 at 11:54 am
Lumber/log marking hammer as Cin city Paul says, though i’m not sure about the payment part. I think it has to do with the quality of the lumber rather than the ownership.
Alasdair
April 10th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Easy. You super-heat metal until it’s liquid, then you press the hammer-thingy into the liquid metal, and voila! A screw driver!
yaker
April 10th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
It was used for Indian women’s forehead caste-marking (”tika”), until they noticed the population drop off from using this device, when the modern vewrmillion dot was employed.
Ryan H
April 10th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
The initial way Charles Xavier accepted mutants into the X-men.
empty-minded
April 10th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
@ Howard: You rock, man.
bademailname
April 10th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
It was clear to me the very moment I ran across the picture:

It’s the meanest cookie cutter ever.
Christophe
April 10th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
I’ve no clue but LOL @ empty-minded’s guess
Greenmantle
April 10th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
It’s a swage or hot set, used for dressing a forge welded crosspiece. It is not a hammer, but is struck with a sledge or hammer. The forge welded crosspiece is placed under the X, and the other side of the swage is struck with a hammer. This shapes and “cleans up” the crossed bar appearance.
leeloodallasmultipass
April 10th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
It’s a finish carpenter’s hammer to mark the wood and then use chisels to remove the excess wood.
Knife Knut
April 10th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
I think it may be a stonemason tool to mark out an area.
Moshe
April 10th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Hammering out pieces of a fence.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Carl
April 10th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
I bet it’s to set the spaces between lines of type in old printing presses. Kerning and leading. Just a guess. (probably won’t be checking the thread to see how wrong I am, though…lol)
Alannah
April 11th, 2008 at 1:04 am
It’s a butting tool for making wooden cross pieces.
tripleX
April 11th, 2008 at 6:57 am
You can make patterns on leather by hitting on the other end.
Randall
April 11th, 2008 at 7:52 am
David Larsen, I have a cousin David in Florida, is that you?
Bernard
April 11th, 2008 at 8:59 am
This is a hammer for marking trees to be logged. Still used now, but flashes with a hatchet or paint marks are increasingly used.
Alex
April 11th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
The funniest set of guesses, EVAR! You guys are awesome

Congrats to ad, who got it right first: it’s a banker’s hammer to mark canceled checks.

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