I found this in the back of my house. My house is from the 1860s and I have found tons of old stuff in the back. This thing is about a foot and a half long and has curved pieces of iron at the end.
Specifically, it is a woodstove smokepipe damper-control rod. (There's an identical one on my antique woodstove's smokepipe.)
Catfish is correct that the coil's purpose is to dissipate heat. Fireplace pokers/tools don't sit where they are constantly exposed to extreme heat ...so there's no need for a heat-dissipation coil on the handle of fireplace tools. But a woodstove's smokepipe damper is located in the stove's body or in the smokepipe just above the stove's top ...where it is constantly exposed to flame or extremely hot smoke. It gets almost as hot as the woodstove itself. That's why the manufacturer included a coiled heat-dissapation handle for the damper-control.
I thought wood stove plate lifter too, but at a foot and a half, its too long. I don't think its a stove pipe damper rod either because of the hook on the end and the handle is strait. All the damper rods I have seen, have a loop or bent handle to make turning the damper easier. I do agree with the fire place poker. I have had several with the wrapping on the handle. Now with all that being said, there have been so many varieties of wood stoves and their accessories (factory built and homemade) that it could be any of these things!!
I had an old ladel years ago I used for making sinkers and the handle was almost the same as pictured. And no it never fell off. It didn't make it much shorter by removing the handle, But I always thougt it was kind of a UNIVERSAL type of handle. Maybe the co that made it had different sizes to hook to it?
How did you find that CBGuy!? I looked all over the internet for damper handles that were strait and couldn't find a single one. I did find heat disipating handles that were strait and curved for just about everything else that has to do with wood stoves and fireplaces tho.
Skeeterd, I merely used Ask.co to websearch for the phrase "wood stove damper" AND the word handle. (Note that I didn't put handle inside the quotation marks around the phrase.
As in:
"wood stove damper" handle
The link to the one at the Enviro website was one of the topmost search-results listed. I clicked on the link, and there on the page was what I wanted.
The Enviro Woodstoves webpage said:
Replacement Brass Damper Spring Handle for Enviro Woodstoves
Fits the following models of Enviro woodstoves:
1200
1700
2100
I should mention, sometimes a woodstove's damper is located in the smokepipe above the stove, and sometimes the damper is in the top of the stove itself (usually near the rear).