duck bill pliers with grippy jaws

[skipskip]

9 1/2 inches overall

pics here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/skipskip/sets/72157627079983373/

duck bill with teeth that mesh inside

one jaw has knurling outside

one handle has a hook for fingers

no name that I can see.

tin knockers tool?

JUL 062 by skipskip, on Flickr


JUL 065 by skipskip, on Flickr

Skip

[rusty]

Interesting, the hooked end on the handle means they are for pulling something, perhaps for stretching fabric or such?

[scottg]

Those are pips!!
 Skinny ducks. I love em. Big teeth!
 
When all else fails, old tradition says, its either a coopers tool (which it can't be this time),
 or a leathermans tool.
 I expect there is a job in saddle/harness making that only this tool does well.

 I have some almost just like them, except the jaws on mine flair outward to 3/4" or more wide.
I always assumed leather work.
 
  I suppose they could have been for pulling chair bottom webbing tight.  But people usually used a stick with some nails sticking out for that. Kind of a crude lever arrangement, but it worked.
 
 Nope, a tool this nice was probably used in a nice high skill elegant job, like a fine saddle.
   yours Scott
   

[benjy]

dentist perhaps

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/VINTAGE-DENTISTS-TOOTH-EXTRACTION-PLIERS-/300576250367?pt=UK_Collectables_Scientific_MJ&hash=item45fbbd99ff

[Branson]

dentist perhaps

The curve in the handle looks right,  but the duckbill working end  won't grasp any part of a tooth. 
But it will grab leather or canvas.  C.S. Osborne and company still makes duckbills, several types.

Here's a picture of one of their offerings.  Look like the one you have, Scott?

[Lewill2]

Salaman's "Dictonary of Leather-Working Tools, c,1700-1950" lists several types of duck billed pliers for most if not all of the different leather working trades. None really says anything about knurling or roughened outer jaw. Perhaps they were used for pulling leather over a form and the outer jaw area was used as a fulcrum point in pulling the leather. Salaman stated that some of them were used in splitting leather. The leather was wet and slippery, the handles being bent so that the pulling action tends to increase the pressure on the jaws. he calls them pulling pincers or Tanner's Pincers. Pages 311 and 312 Fig. 11:29 

[scottg]

Mine look closer to the Osbourne pliers, but 50 or 100 years older.
 And yes, I assume the teeth on the outside are for purchase when levering.
  yours Scott