What Is It? Game 108

Yes, this week's collaboration with the always awesome What is it? Blog brings us ... a spike - but can you guess its specific purpose? (hint: it has a VERY specific purpose)

Place your guess in the comment section - no prize this week, so you're playing for fame and glory. Please post no URL - let others play. For more clues, check out the What is it? Blog.

Good luck!

Update 8/22/09 - it's a device to disable cannons:
Since the head of this tool can pivot, it can't be used as a hammer or pick. The owner of it had a Civil War book that described it as a cannon tool, he said that it was used by soldiers to disable enemy cannons or their own if they had to retreat. The spike was placed in the ignition hole and hammered until the cannon cracked or until the hole was large enough that the cannon was no longer usable.

I've since been informed that:

The phrase "to spike a cannon" meant to disable it by driving a tapered wrought iron plug, or spike, down the touch hole with a hammer until it was level and firmly embedded. I suppose the spike could eventually be drilled out, but tools to do this were not readily available, and the process would take some time.


Seems that nobody got it this time around!

This is not a hammer. It may have been used as a hammer by mistake, but it is actually a precise scientific instrument. The proper name is a Tibolicistic Chronosmithic Pistometer, but its usually called a fruit spike. These are placed beside a fruit bearing tree at the long handles length from the trunk and when a fruit falls from the tree and is impaled upon the sharp spike, precise measurments are taken of the penatration and juice color using etched markings not visible in the picture. This data is used by the National Fructose Board to determine crop yields and values and is instrumental in forfending world nutrional collapse.

I love this game, I always know the answer.
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It's a peppermint-seeking ice pick, used by intrepid Yukon prospectors. You simply toss the tool into the air, allowing it impale itself in the snow. You then detect the presence of peppermint by tasting the tip containing snow or ice using your tongue.
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Could it be an emergency ice axe for if you fall through the ice, you use it to pull yourself out. so the swivel head will catch at any angle.
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"Charlie (Colorado)
August 20th, 2009 at 9:09 am

Spiking hammer for building railroads. The pointy end is for making a pilot hole, then you drive the spike wih the flat end."

Ding. My dad and grandad worked railroads. Charlie's right.
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Its a brain hammer. Back in the day, when cows would come up for slaughter, a guy at the end of the line would "whack" the cow in the brain with the hammer and kill it.
Brain Hammer!
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Looks like a tool I saw in a very upsetting medical illustration. (Which reassuringly hangs at the University of Delaware Student Health Center). I believe this type of hammer was used to poke holes in human skulls to relieve pressure or what have you. Clearly, I was a liberal arts major, but I think it's called trepination (sp?)
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It is a blacksmiths hot punch, for drifting round holes in hot metal. If it had a rectangular point it would be a farriers pritchel chisel, but the round makes me think it is more for blacksmithing than farrier work. If it was for cold work it wouldn't need the handle, but for hot work it would get too hot to hold so the handle is attached.
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