In response to the mystery tool belonging to Marty Mandelbaum of Mount Sinai, New York, from our February issue, we received this note from Ed Wolf of New York, New York:
“My dad was a Viennesetrained furrier, and I spent many an hour working with him as a kid, but was never allowed to use these tools: ‘Too dangerous!’ I’ll bet Marty Mandelbaum’s dad was also a furrier.”
Ed, you bet correctly. According to Marty Mandelbaum himself, “My father used to work with furs and used very sharp blades to skive the skins.”
For further details, we heard from Charles Kimble of Bremen, Indiana, who described himself as a retired furrier who had used these two items “hundreds or thousands of times during my career.”
Charles said, “The wood hinged…
