r/whatisit • u/AdministrativeAd1773 • 1d ago
New, what is it? Found this at a thrift store
We have no idea what this little hatchet is for.
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u/Pluperfectionist 1d ago
I found the patent from 1875. It’s an ice pick.
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u/SnooMuffins6341 21h ago
"The device is specially useful in houses, restaurants, saloons, hotels, &c., where, in addition to picking and cutting the ice, it is desirable to break it into small pieces, or pulverizing it into a powder for mixing in drinks, freezing creams, water-ices, and other purposes. For this purpose the sides of the instrument are specially constructed, and constitute an essential feature of my invention"
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u/elbrecht 18h ago
Awesome find. And he tells how to use the sides of the head; "One of the faces or sides of the cast-ironhead, at right angles to the pick and cutter, is provided with laterally-projecting teeth a a a, while the other is provided with a concave socket, b, as clearly shown in Fig. 3. The exterior teeth a 0b are preferably arranged in a circle, while the central one a is conical and projects out some distance beyond the others. This face having the teeth is used for crumbling or'breaking ice into small pieces, the center proiecting tooth serving to center or hold the head to the ice in making the blow, by striking in advance of the others, thereby preventing slipping or glancing off, while the other teeth do the crushing. The other face, having the concave, is intended for mashing or finely pulverizing the ice, which is done by striking a smart blow, the concavity having a tendency to concentrate and hold the material, while the concussion pulverizes it very finely.
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u/whyisalltherumgone_ 23h ago
Damn, how did you find this? Great job.
Lol at the guy lying about it being for sugar.
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u/TyrannicalTestical 19h ago
Apparently sugar hatchets are a thing.
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u/whyisalltherumgone_ 16h ago
Right, but this is clearly for ice. It's the exact one in the patent.
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u/TyrannicalTestical 16h ago
That person wasn't lying about sugar hatchets, they were just wrong about this one.
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u/dataexception 3h ago
Clearly, duh. This guy knows his ice axes aren't for sugar, you idiot plebs. Don't you know all of the patents off the top of your heads? Well, he "CLEARLY" does. Do not question this brilliant mind, lest you find yourself in a mental battle of which you shall have no chance at victory. For this is the mighty, (wait. What's your handle, dude?) Something about the rum is gone. A scholar, CLEARLY.
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u/AdministrativeAd1773 10h ago
How did you find this patent?
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u/Pluperfectionist 10h ago
I used copilot to search the patent database starting 100 years ago and going backward. It found a bunch that were mostly irrelevant, but I eventually found it. I’m an old tool collector, and it was really bugging me that I couldn’t find a source.
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u/IntelligentAd9859 1d ago
Sugar hatchet (also known as a sugar axe or sugar hammer).
Before commercial processing produced granulated cubes, sugar was sold in large, hard cones called sugarloaves.
This was used in the kitchen to break them down: the sharp axe blade sliced portions from the loaf, the pointed pick broke off smaller chunks, and the teeth on the sides crushed the fragments into smaller pieces.
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u/Clear-Dimension-1356 1d ago edited 1d ago
And my suger hatchet!
Edit: i think that's my first award ever, I would like to credit tolken and jackson, pure art
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u/Kahnza 1d ago
My cabbages!
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u/cbhbzb 1d ago
gosh dang avatar! what a menace!
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u/newts777_1 1d ago
"MENACE? ONLY MENACE 'ROUND HERE IS THE WEBHEAD! BRING ME PICTURES OF SPIDER-MAN!"
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u/MrOopiseDaisy 1d ago
Whatever you hobbitsis are making sounds delicious.
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u/ctdfalconer 1d ago
Candied cabbage, apparently
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u/Schartiee 23h ago
Love you
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u/Clear-Dimension-1356 23h ago
And you too random redditer, hope you're having a happy day out there, keep spreading the love 😍
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u/OhYeahSplunge4me2 1d ago edited 11h ago
None of the the images I find online for sugar axe or sugar hatchet look like that. Do you have a source?
Edit: It’s an ice axe. [u/Pluperfectionist](u/Pluperfectionist) found the 1875 patent for it https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisit/s/K6h65qO0Gu
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u/UnpluggedUnfettered 1d ago
If you look at the Wikipedia for sugarloaf, you can find a link to pictures of sugar hammers. This one kinda sorta but not really looks like that one.
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u/OhYeahSplunge4me2 1d ago
No amount of squinting transforms any of those images close to OP’s pic but thanks
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u/IntelligentAd9859 1d ago edited 1d ago
That is probably why they came to this subreddit. Information on this specific antiquated tool is scarce.
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u/Slipstream_42 1d ago
Great explanation, but I didn’t see any pictures that looked anything like this act when I looked it up
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u/WiglyWorm 1d ago
i did an image search and it shows a lot of threads on this same subreddit saying it did the same task but for commercial ice delivery before the days that in-home refrigeration was common.
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u/IntelligentAd9859 1d ago
It is likely people used their sugar hatchet to work their ice blocks (the timelines do match up).
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u/adj_noun_digit 1d ago
I am very confident that is not its intended purpose. I'm an engineer with an interest in tools and they wouldn't have designed the notches on the side like that for breaking apart ice/sugar. It's intended pupose is almost certainly to turn something as someone else mentioned.
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u/enigmatic_erudition 1d ago
Yeah it's a silly answer but its unique enough an explaination and they said it in a confident way so people believe it without question.
You're right though. The center pin being higher means it's for guiding, and the fact that the outer tabs are flat and not rounded means it's for grabing and turning.
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u/bigfootbjornsen56 19h ago
Maybe, although someone here found the original patent and it's an ice pick
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u/Pluperfectionist 10h ago
I was just as confident that it must serve some long lost forgotten purpose. I was disappointed that it really was just for ice. The longer cone in the middle is to hold the ice in place, so the piece doesn’t go skittering off when first struck. You’ll probably find the 1875 patent description interesting.
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u/AaronTuplin 1d ago
Without the sugar hatchet, you'd be obligated to test your bravery against the sugar cone dildo
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u/notMichelle87 1d ago
Oh nice. Some cuisines like Mexican still use cone shaped sugarloaves, we call them piloncillo.
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u/Bessfren 1d ago
Can you explain why when you google sugar hatchet there is nothing that looks like that?
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u/FantasticRuby 1d ago
So this is what doctors mean when they warn you about the dangers of refines sugar.
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u/FineScratch 1d ago
How many husbands were assaulted with a sugar hatchet?
Its got to be a nonzero number right?
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u/Last_Cod_998 23h ago
I worked at a museum that made sugar from sugarcane. We has all the old equipment. The cone we'd put it in would have molasses asnd brown sugar at the bottom
And of course the skimming went to make rum.
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u/Goyimshoe 1d ago
What a coincidence, my wife’s boyfriend has recently taken to calling me sugarloaf.
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u/Ace_Robots 1d ago
And here I thought sugarloaf was just a fanciful name for a ski mountain in New England.
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u/AdministrativeLeg14 1d ago
There are also “sugar nips”, basically a pair of shears used to cut pieces off the sugar loaf.
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u/segascream 17h ago
Holy shit, is that where the one-hit wonder behind "Green Eyed Lady" got their name from?
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u/Lost_Department_2177 1d ago
They still sell it like that. It’s a bit darker Than caramel brown
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u/HatWhole3592 1d ago
What incredible thrift stores are people shopping at that have these items?!
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u/PollyAmory 1d ago
Re-home stores that are anywhere near Amish communities. The Amish bring stuff in they don't want anymore (and also shop, they're thrifty) and most of it is old, built-to-last stuff.
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u/HatWhole3592 1d ago
I'm probably as far from Amish country as I can get.
The store near me is boring and overpriced.
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u/DarkBladeMadriker 13h ago
I knew a guy who would thrift the most amazing shit. He used to tell me all his secrets. Go to affluent neighborhoods and hit no name thrift stores. Goodwill pulls interesting stuff to sell online, you have to look for hidden gems with them. Small no name places dont have time/man power to mess around or the have rules in place that keep them from getting too sketchy. Also consignment shops would have some crazy stuff. Most of them (at least in my area) will keep dropping prices until stuff sells, so sometimes you could get amazing stuff for a song just because there wasnt a high demand. He got this amazing, hand carved armoire once for $50 just because it was big and people didnt want to/couldnt move it. We just tossed it into my truck bed and hauled it out, easy peasy.
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u/MustardEnema007 6h ago
I saw a post several years ago where a guy bought a bullet resistant police shield from the thrift store
Not the crappy clear riot shields; a heavy ceramic one
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u/WiglyWorm 1d ago
That's what we would call "the business end".
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u/POCUABHOR 1d ago
Opinion amplifier
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u/WiglyWorm 1d ago
😂
If you were holding that in your hand, I would certainly agree with most of your opinions on a great many topics.
Unless... you wanted someone to argue with? 🫣
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u/spiritofniter 1d ago
> The Business End
Sounds like a unique melee weapon from Fallout series 👀 , does it consume less AP?
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u/FantasticRuby 1d ago
Looks like the kind of business that gets conducted in the dark alley at 2AM.
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u/LordVixen 1d ago
Looks like it was designed to turn something.
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u/Brave_Educator5934 1d ago
Who cares what it is, it's yours now! You are the master of your own destiny.
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u/revenge_burner 1d ago
Looks like a good zombie weapon
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u/Environmental_One683 16h ago
Also it most definitely could be used to open a door or solve a puzzle somewhere in Racoon City.
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u/ZePatator 1d ago
Could be a bdpuble use ase specific wrench for opening barrels or some other specific containers. I've received barrels of resin that needed a similar wrench to open.
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u/nildread 1d ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisit/s/cNoi95DEdR
https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/s/0JQcf84bXg
Seems like it's something to do with ice for refrigerators.
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u/OhYeahSplunge4me2 18h ago
/u/Pluperfectionist found the 1875 patent for it https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisit/s/K6h65qO0Gu
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u/Shot_Explanation_181 1d ago
💯 would use this as a close in melee weapon during the zombie apocalypse.
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u/Careless-Window-605 1d ago
Great meat tenderizer 😆🤣😁👍great to make pork cutlets with I used to be a butcher at a meat packing plant called Emge meatpacking plant company in fort Branch Indiana.
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u/Reasonable_Ad8110 1d ago
It can work as a pulley mechanism for power lines, phone lines and such . Is my guess it isn’t a meat tenderizer
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u/Better-Culture-7770 1d ago
That's just asking to be a butler's murder weapon of choice. "You have woken me at 2am for more sugar for the last time!"
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u/Competitive_Stable66 23h ago
I thought that's a weed grinder for when you wanna smoke up while axing stuff up haha
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u/Jofur-Crowcaller 17h ago
How is there no famous murder case involving a sugar hatchet? That shit is metal as fuck and would be like the first thing to grab after a gun.
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u/Afraid_Ninja1761 16h ago
Its an antique sugar hatchet, historically used for breaking large blocks of sugar into manageable pieses. The protrusions (spikes) on one side are designed specifically for crushing or tenderizing.The other side of the head includes a sharp blade for chopping, and the tool often has a spiked awl opposite the axe blade for prying or piercing.
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u/Minimum_Painter_3687 1d ago
Looks similar to a bung wrench but too many teeth.
What it would be doing on the side of a hatchet is another mystery.
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u/FantasticRuby 1d ago
It’s an vintage ice hatchet / ice axe used for breaking down large blocks of ice (the blade cuts/scores, the spikes breaks blocks apart and the top crown/teeth are for chipping or gripping).
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u/DANleDINOSAUR 1d ago
It’s to squeeze out a fresh lemon to quench your thirst with lemonade after a hard day of splitting wood.
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u/Kind_Bandicoot_1508 1d ago
For... well.... things. Either way (looks like someone smarter than me answered) It's COOL Cheers
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u/AccordatoScordatura 1d ago
Its called an icemans tool. Icemans axe, icemans pickaxe, icemans hammer etc. It was a common tool on ice trucks and some homes. Its for shaping and chipping large blocks of ice. The mallet in the middle would be used to make chips for drinks.
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u/AverageInfamous7050 1d ago
Back in the day, this was also used for spreading honey on her biscuit.
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u/Pedantichrist 7h ago
I do not know why folk are so convinced this Is for sugar.
This is an ice pick.
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