Wierd pliers ?

[fernando]

If i may switch the complicometer ...

These don't seem much practical for frequent pick and pull moves; it would need some patience and accuracy to grab the object in a position to match it with the longitudinal section of the tongs.
More like something to be held (and not dropped) while being treated. If indeed this were smith forging tongs, then the object to forge would have to be rather long, to prevent the pliers from coming too close to the fire.
Its non simple design, lance shaped handle, horn prongs and all, besides making it appear less western, may also indicate this is a device to use under ritual circumstances.

[A Senefelder]

Fernando,

These don't seem much practical for frequent pick and pull moves; it would need some patience and accuracy to grab the object in a position to match it with the longitudinal section of the tongs.

Which is exactly why smithing takes practice ( and a willingness to suffer a burn or two ). This is however exactly how tongs are used. One utilizes them to 1) place an item into the fire as doing so by hand is an impossibility due to the intense heat, 2) to shift and item around in a fire to heat evenly or check that the item is heated to what is desired, 3) to remove the heated item from the fire, and 4) to hold the item while it is hot and being worked with a hammer or in other words the entire time the item it hot. A square piece of bar stock will not seat anywhere near as firmly in a set of tongs with flat jaws so square jaws are used, but a much smaller piece of square stock will not seat firmly if at all in a larger set of square pickup tongs so various sizes are needed. The same applies to round stock pick up tongs ect. Throw into this the ingenuity of smiths on the job who tended to make up their own tools if they did not have the right one for a job and there is a wide variety of tongs, many non standard one offs around. I have several antique 19th century tongs around that we still haven't figured out what they may have been used for. To give you some idea of the variety ( and this is a small sampling ) this is a link to one company's offerings of tongs http://www.centaurforge.com/Tongs/departments/102/ If you do a search on Epray under Collectibles, Tools,Locks, Hardware and type in " blacksmith tongs " hundreds of examples come up. I mention this only by way of illustrating the wide variety of tongs that were made over the years.

None of this means in any way that the item in the OP are square stock pick up tongs, that is simply what they look like given the 4-5 sets of them that I have both new and antique and the similarity to them in the manner in which the jaws of this item are designed and built.

Its non simple design, lance shaped handle, horn prongs and all, besides making it appear less western, may also indicate this is a device to use under ritual circumstances.

I am inclined to agree, for all the antique tools, hammers, stakes, anvils, tongs ect. I use and the hundereds more I've seen over the years of tool searching, they are all about function rather than decoration, many being very plain and baring the marks of smith made tools. This is finished and decorated to a much higher level than the metalworking tools I've encountered ( primarily America 19th century ).

[Emanuel]

What I find really nifty about these tongs is the box joint/pivot.
A lot of work must have gone into it, whereas a simple overlapping joint is much easier to make.

[spiral]

Ones modern use of forging tools, does provide good evidence of how 7 what they may do.

The fact such tools normally used in the west have no decoration may mean nothing in this context though..

In historic Hindu culture at least, many tools & most weapons carry religious or spiritual symbolism...

So Id guess the may be Indian... {Of course other cultures/religions in Africa or South AmericaI am unaware of may have done similar.}

But I think for origin we can rule out countrys where predominantly those 3 localised middle eastern origin Abrahamic religions, the Christian, Muslim or Jewish faiths preside.

But my moneys on Hindu Indian origin.

spiral

[drac2k]

As previously mentioned, I think the tongs are a multi-purpose torture device, as shown on the television show "Deals from the Darkside ;" the only difference was that the clamp part they had, also possessed serrated teeth.The same dragon like image was represented on their pair as well.Also what purpose would a spear head at the end of the tongs, facing oneself serve, save being heated to gouge out an eye or two.

[spiral]

Originally Posted by drac2k

As previously mentioned, I think the tongs are a multi-purpose torture device, as shown on the television show "Deals from the Darkside ;" the only difference was that the clamp part they had, also possessed serrated teeth.The same dragon like image was represented on their pair as well.Also what purpose would a spear head at the end of the tongs, facing oneself serve, save being heated to gouge out an eye or two.

How about Symbolism, based on pre.modern belief systems?

The tv show you site is ridiculous fantasy show made for light entertainment!

You can not possibly seriously take that as a factual source surely?

But thank you for sharing your thoughts! Certainly something to make one stop & think for a few seconds...

spiral

[A. G. Maisey]

Please accept my apologies people.

I was only kidding about "removal of body parts" I didn't think for a moment anybody would take me seriously. I do tend to get a bit facetious at times --- especially after watching all three seasons of the"The Borgias" at a single sitting.

As Mr. Senefelder has mentioned, I believe these are smith's tongs, what sort of smith, I don't know, but I have tongs exactly the same that I made for use in the forge.

I was taught fire & iron by one of Australia's last traditional blacksmiths, a gentleman named Gordon Blackwell, he taught me basics, and I needed to teach myself the more specialised things involved in making pamor and doing blade-smith work.

However, one of the things Gordon taught me was how to make tongs, and I made a number of tongs, all for different purposes, some have jaws exactly the same as the ones shown by Royston, but construction is much more simple and there is no ornamentation.

So, serious guess this time:- smith's tongs.

Incidentally, I've burnt myself a lot of times when working, and something that has always amazed me is that these burns never, ever hurt at the time. They might smart a bit the following day, especially when bathing, but at the time, never. I do not have especially high tolerance of pain.