interesting old "universal" tool

think of it as an adjustable wrench without moving jaw.

I ran into one of those at the swap meet the weekend before last. The one I saw had teeth opposite directions instead of smooth on one side. My guess was a monkey/pipe wrench and maybe thread chasers on yours.
As a side note, I bought a bunch of very good 1/8"-3/4" reamers for $2 apiece + 3-4 adjustables @ the same price. Oh, and about 20 small Williams, Billings, & Armstrong wrenches for .25 cents apiece. I was finally having a great day until I got back in my truck and noticed all the tire changing tools on the seat. They punched the passenger lock and moved the tools to get the change on the flood board and yanked out my new USB flash drive stereo. It makes sense that where they show up the black hole must be close.

It is a Lineman's "Goat" wrench for square nuts on poles. The holes in the centre are for re-laying guy wire strands. I believe the holes will be 1/2" in the centre and 3/8" & 5/16 on the outside.
Pete

wow, cool, I knew someone in this group would know exactly what it was - is this still in use? any clue on age? it can't be all that common or I would have seen one before. thanks

before Bill: I just gotta say it. Every time you post on this group, I assert it's just a front for promoting your "for sale" items and your website. They may be metal related items, but isn't ebay enough exposure for you? Point is, I'd appreciate you just being straight. You're selling stuff, not looking for help all the time. -Mike

your point is noted, but it's not quite accurate - SOME of my posts are to point folks to an e-bay item that I think might be of interest, over half (I didn't do the statistical analysis) have no reference to ebay or other sale stuff - I do remark on stuff where I have some knowlege after all. In this particular case, I really did want to know if this was some kind of specialty tool or just another one of those "pat pending" universal tools. The e-bay link provides a quick way to the picture and saves space in the metalworking drop box. When my only purpose is to flog some item of interest, I am dilligent about adding "FA" to the front of the post title to make that clear. And, I looked at some past posts, I've also been seeking some stuff that I need, though so far not with great success. So, I believe I am following protocol, and staying reasonably on topic, and even generally avoiding the wild swings of political discussions. Posting a for sale link for an item that is on topic and relevant seems OK to me, and when I run across such links posted by others I have no problem (and have on occasion used them to find/buy something) - I do get annoyed at very frequent posting of totally irrelevant stuff for sale, but I haven't seen a lot of that on this NG. If you would like to offer a suggestion different from the FS or FA prefix to a title that would help clarify the message purpose for you, then please post it and if it's reasonable I'll adopt it. Some things (like top posting versus bottom posting) are like religion, and can't be argued to a successful conclusion because tastes are different.
your advise?

A little searching on the net turns up:
:)

Think of a lineman up a telephone pole - remember the old ones with 100 wires... 50 to 60 feet in the air ?
You are on spike boots and have one hand to work with. Want a Crescent (that wasn't invented yet ?) This was a universal jam wrench and worked just fine with one hand.
Lots of tools were like that. When men did the work by themselves or with a bucket and a rope...
Martin
Martin H. Eastburn @ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net TSRA, Life; NRA LOH & Endowment Member, Golden Eagle, Patriot"s Medal. NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder IHMSA and NRA Metallic Silhouette maker & member.
William Noble wrote:

thanks - who would have thought --- I'm starting to think that I should keep it on my tool belt rather than let it go - the things one learns....

I'll stick to a set of parrot nose channelocks myself.
Wes