Gorham figural tongs

[bubba]

Would someone please date these and were any matching pieces made, pattern name?
Thank you



click to enlarge

[dragonflywink]

Wow - he's a weird one isn't he? Reminds me of a pair of freaky frog novelty tongs by Gorham I saw a few years ago, with similar gangly legs rather than arms. Can't really check any of my references right now, but they did do a number of whimsical, often bizarre pieces around the 1880s. Pretty uncommon item, there may be some similarly designed pieces out there, but it wouldn't have been a named line-pattern, probably not even part of a matched set.....

~Cheryl

[silverly]

Your tongs are certainly an oddity to me, and unfortunately, I can't tell you anything at all about them. They look like they're cast and for that reason would not function very well. Do they seem to work alright and do they have a hinge or something to allow them to flex to open and close? As you suggest, I too get the impression that they would have gone with something else. They are certainly something from another time with the caricature of a chinese cooley, and I do hope someone can shed some light on them.

[bubba]

They are independant hinged arms with a spring load and function very well. I have seen several Japanese netsuke and carvings on bamboo canes [Japan or China?] depicting people with exagerated long legs and/or arms. I would guess they are part of some tale but do not remember any with a long Queue.

[JLDoggett]

Bubba you are thinking of Ashinaga and Tenaga. One had very short arms and extremely long legs the othe had short legs but very long arms. Together they worked to fish and collect pearls. It is a Japanese story.

I suspect these tongs had a stand of a man with very long legs but short arms to hold the tongs.