What is it? CLXII

version:

I've gotten a further translation. In Chinese, the inscription says "Zi Cai Bu".

Chinese does not directly translate into English, but roughly; Zi is related to words meaning 'capital' or 'information'; Cai is related to 'materials', and 'Bu' means 'department'. "Zi Cai Bu" probably means the tool belonged to an official materials and maintenance department, possibly at a large organization like a construction firm or university.

This makes it highly unlikely to be an elephant stick. I'm even more comfortable with the idea that it is a wood handling tool.

--riverman

That hurts just thinking about it! :)

It wouldn't make very much sense to put your glass of scotch _above_ the book in case it spills, right? ;)

version:

Thanks, I've added your comments to the answer page.

And thanks for the translation, it has also been posted on the answer page, along with an email from someone who used an identical tool to move large fish, I've also got a link to a video where similar hooks are used at a Japaneese fish market. If I had to put money on it, I'd bet on fish moving tool or log pickeroon over elephant trainer's hook.

Rob

Picaroons/pickaroons are used in plywood mills when there is a build-up of scrap veneer along the green chain. They just whack the thing in to some veneer, and drag it of to the chipper to be made into presto logs, or hogg fuel. Don't ask how I know!

Steve R.

I'm going to retract my assumption that its a wood-moving tool, and put all my chips on a fish picaroon. Check out this picture from a frozen tuna processing plant in Japan:

Although you cannot see the handle, the top of this tool is precisely like the item you are showing us. The big bulb on the handle would be a necessary thing to keep a grip on a slimy handle.

In this picture (strangely enough, from the same processing plant in Japan) you can see a similar tool, but with the bulbous handle clearly visible.

I'm quite confident that its a fish handling tool from Japan.

--riverman

Japan:

And here, you can see the entire tool in the hands of the man on the left.

--riverman

That's a bit fishy. ;) The tool you're showing has a much slimmer handle than the one in Rob's quiz. I owned the exact tool from the quiz and it was labeled as being a pickaroon by an extremely knowledgeable, now deceased, collector. The knob at the end of any tool would be useful any time the grip might slip involved - it doesn't have to involve fish slime, sweat can be mighty slippery as well.

The shape of the tool is extremely straightforward, and the hook and grab move would be useful in a lot of different applications. Similar tools, different applications. For example, I have an amazing stainless steel elongated spatulate spreader that is useful for tile work, spreading glue and cleaning out tiny crevices. My father, the orthodontist who I got it from, used it for years in the dental business! I was shocked that he didn't know what one of his own tools was used for! ;)

Who determines what is the correct use of a tool? The manufacturer, the purveyor or the end user?

Welll! The manufacturer is the one who determines what the tool was " MADE " for but then anyone can "adapt" it for any other use they desire. That is way I look at it. ...lew...

Perhaps. I think that Rob should have a Rube Goldberg category. It's so limiting to have to guess the intended use. If he posted a picture of a hammer, and someone replied, "I use that to drive screws.", they should get partial credit because you _can_ use a hammer to drive some screws. I'm big on partial credit.

Otherwise the quiz becomes so rigid, with _only_ one "right" answer. It smacks of Fascism. Can't we all be right? Can't we all be winners? Can't we all just get along...?

How about it, Rob? Are you willing to lighten up on the iron-fisted control a bit? ;)

I probably should ease up some, I wouldn't want to risk any newsgroup/interweb sanctions for facist behavior.;-) Maybe I could start using satisfactory/unsatisfactory when answering guesses. Actually, the next set doesn't have any ambiguous objects, so it will be at least another week before I change my ways.

Rob

Well, ambiguous or not, I spend hours last night looking at google.images under "Tokyo fish market", "Japan Fish Market", "Tuna auction" and "Tsukiji", and saw dozens of pictures of people using tools exactly like that one, especially with the characteristic shape of the shaft and the large bulb. Additionally, the writing on the bottom could be Japanese as easily as it could be Chinese; in fact the characters at the top of the logo look like Katakana. I'll have a Japanese friend look at it later tonight.

Although I am sure that 'a hook on a stick' is probably a pretty common tool, considering that I haven't seen any images of wood picaroons that have bulbs at the end of the handle, and the abundance of similar tools from google.images, I think its even more assured that this particular tool was designed to move frozen fish around, probably at the Tsukiji Fish market in Tokyo.

Here are some of the more convincing photos clearly showing the tool with the distinctive handle:

This one shows the tool the most clearly.

--riverman

True. I'm looking at the tool he tagged into the answer page. I think the tool in the quiz is something else....for starters, the point on the sharp end is quite a bit different from the fish snagger thingy.

--riverman

Not as distinctive a bulb, but a bulb nonetheless, on handles from 15 inches to

that its a fish handling tool from Japan.

I agree that the smaller tool is a fish mover, but it's hard to say for sure about the other one.

Rob

Was out driving today and saw some in the real world, of a more modern, presumably plastic, construction.

Wouldn't be surprised if some of the ceramic ones were still up around here. If I see one and can get a picture I'll put it up on the same site.

Come on, Gunner! You need something with at least a 2 HP motor to do the job right. BTW, don't forget to trim his hemorrhoids with your plasma cutter.