Cobbler’s Double Crab Laster

Let me kick off the tool category with something I sold on eBay a couple years ago. I bought it at a garage sale for pennies without having a clue as to its function (neither did the seller). It just looked odd. To my surprise, it was identified as a cobbler’s tool called a double crab laster. It is used to help shape the leather of a shoe’s or boot’s leather upper over a shoemaker’s last. A threaded key passes through 2 arced arms that are hinged together at one end. Each arm terminates at its other end in a simple 2-part grip like the jaws of square-nosed pliers. They are manually opened and closed with no spring, or other mechanism, to maintain their position. They open only narrowly. The width between these clamp-like ends can be adjusted by turning the threaded key. The key has a maximum length of about 6”. Each arm is about 3 ¾” long. The tool is steel and ¾” thick.



Even more to my surprise, it sold for more than $100 and ended up in England.

(After it had been ID'd, I took it to a shoemaker who said he'd never seen or heard of anything like it.)

 

Thank you for showing me, never seen anything like that before either!