That looks like a tinsmiths soldering iron.  It would be placed in a blacksmith style forge and heated up. It still looks like it has solder on the tip.

Back in the day Shop Class that's what we learned to solder our projects with, used to scare the heck out of me because we'd start screwing around with them when they were red hot like they were branding irons and that was a sure fire way to get lines from Mr. McCullough except in his shop class you had to do the lines in drafting lettering. Thanks for that memory jog Jerel. 

66 327 sd wrote:

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(My old shop teacher wrote in my yearbook Good luck to the wood butcher! Not very nice of him.)

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 LOL   

Geez that old blow torch was another thing that freaking scared the heck out of me, My Grandfather and Mr. Phillip across the street used to paint houses after they retired and they'd be up a 12 foot wooden extension ladder torching away at the windows and trim, two old guys full of badassery who lived in trenches for 4 years took a few bullets some shrapnel and carried on.