Was also bought from someone cleaning out a shop that repaired old tractors.  Any ideas?

It is for crimping  fittings onto electrical metallic tubing (conduit). Made by the Briegel Method Tool Co, it was a propritary conduit system. The system was in use briefly in the early 40's- late 50's

Oddly, there is a 'museum' website for this company: http://home.comcast.net/~briegelmethodtool/briegelpatents.html