A friend sent me the pictures and asked what it was...I have never seen anything like it !
It's an assayer's tool for grinding ore samples.
I was thinking on the same line, that it was used to crush some think, but did not know what ?
Thanks a bunch for the instant answer ! I googled "assayers tools" and there it was in all it's glory. It's called a muller and goes with a bucking board to grind ore samples to a certain sieve size for assaying !
Hello, Kwoswalt99. Great job on identifying that tool. How heavy is that tool?? Regards, Lou
Martin Donnelly had one and it weighed 50 lbs.
Mike