Now that we've established that it is, indeed, a pipe vise and now that I've had a chance to think about it, I realize that it's a brilliant design: you can put the various standard sizes of pipe in and tighten up the vise with minimal work. On a standard pipe vise, when you move from, say, 1/2" to 1-1/4" pipe, you end up turning the screw quite a bit; not so with this one.