Posted 6 years ago
Irishcolle…
(137 items)
I'm trying to find out what these wooden items are for. They open and close with a "pliers" type action. When closed, the jaws and arms fit very tightly together. In each case one side of the jaw is thicker than the other. Both are damaged. The longer one, which is 5 1/8 inches long, is missing an arm and the other has one end missing. Any ideas?
I would guess these have a connection to the Warther Museum in Ohio, USA.
http://thewarthermuseum.com/
Ernest Warther, master woodcarver (and its original founder) was well known (amongst his other amazing carving skills) for being able to make operable pliers like this, often in 'trees' of multiple attached sets, from a single piece of wood.
As such, they're not so much "for" anything in particular, other than to show off the skills of whoever carved them...? ;-) :-)
Meant to ask -- does it look possible that the smaller one is actually the broken off '2nd arm' of the larger one??
Many thanks to AnythingObscure for solving this mystery so fast. You are also correct in saying that the two parts belong together - don't know how I didn't notice that before. Something else has also become clear...... there is a signature in pen on the side of the small piece which I could not read and did not pay much attention to but looking more closely at it now I can see that the second name is Warther and I think the first name is Mark. It has travelled a long way to end up in Ireland.
Thanks also to bobby725 for commenting.
Looking at the museum site again I see that signed pliers can be purchased as souvenirs.
You're quite welcome Irishcollector. -- I'm glad I was able to help! It would seem your pliers are now rather 'well-traveled'?!
I also wholeheartedly agree with bobby725 that the Warther Museum is an amazing place to visit...his locomotives are probably the most spectacular, but actually only a portion of the incredible, nearly unbelievable works of carved art on display.
Another part of the Museum is an operating workshop facility, which produces fine quality handmade cutlery of all sorts. Instead of wood pliers, I actually brought home a "#10 carving knife" as my souvenir of a visit there a couple years ago. ;-) :-)