What type of Spear Head is this ?

Dubman · Jan 4, 2016

I found this at the beach after major erosion. It was down at waters edge at low tide, in the hard pan. Only the rock & some shells were sticking out of the sand/mud. The first pictures are just after finding it. The others are after soaking in distilled water changed daily, and my first scrapping of the attachments.

Any ideals of what it is, one friend says it looks like a wrought iron fence picket head. Its very heavy. I'm going to scrape it some more before putting it in a 10% solution of sodium hydroxide and 90% water.

Thanks for any info!

gheenoe78 · Jan 4, 2016

My first guess was a fence picket as well. Maybe a kid fashioned it to make a spear for fishing? Odd that you'd find a fence picket near the shoreline.

Dubman · Jan 7, 2016

After cleaning the debris off of the spear head, this is what I have now. Its a very smooth metal that is brittle, trying to remove the debris off of the shaft end, it broke off, showing the cross section of the metal. It is also not symmetrical thinking its hand made verses machine made. I have seen some spear heads this shape on the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spear web site.

So do you all still think it is a wrought iron fence picket leaf spear head ?

CRUSADER · Jan 7, 2016

Dubman said:
After cleaning the debris off of the spear head, this is what I have now. Its a very smooth metal that is brittle, trying to remove the debris off of the shaft end, it broke off, showing the cross section of the metal. It is also not symmetrical thinking its hand made verses machine made. I have seen some spear heads this shape on the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spear web site.

So do you all still think it is a wrought iron fence picket leaf spear head ?View attachment 1257237 View attachment 1257238 View attachment 1257239 View attachment 1257240

In answer to your question, yes I do.

wagbert · Jan 7, 2016

Generally speaking, what beach did it come from? U.S.A., Canada, Europe

? I think it probably is off a fancy iron fence, but the ones I have seen looked larger.
Wrought iron is brittle, so that may be why the tip came off an aged piece like that. It is pretty wicked looking.
Phil