Greetings, and Merry Christmas, everyone. Recently,I finished restoring this seasoned old hammer  as the rain silently cascaded over the workshop roof. The deep pitting originally covered the whole head, so I reground and polished the face and edges. The handle is a replacement ,of course, finished with fire and danish oil. 

  This hammer is also a bit of a curiousity to me, not being a very experienced smith. It looks sort of like a straight peen hammer, but it's unuasaully long. Perhaps a chisel peen then? If anyone knows it's specific name and use, I'd love to hear it.

Actually it is a chisel with a handle.  Versions of handled chisels are still being made and sold by various venders.  It is also referred to as a handled hot cut.  For example:

- https://www.blacksmithsdepot.com/page.php?theLocation=/Resources/Product/Punches/Chisel_-_German_Handled_Hot_Cut.xml/

- http://www.centaurforge.com/Cutting-and-Slitting-Chisel

 

The sharp end is placed against the hot metal, and the flat end is struck with a hammer to drive the chisel into the hot metal.

 

Also, as a reference:

http://books.google.com/books?id=PjpVAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=ornamental+forging&hl=en&sa=X&ei=UU3UUI7-G6-F0QGQl4GoBA&ved=0CDwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

has the following:

 Excellent ! Thank you ,sir, that is precisely the answer I was hoping for . I appreciate the information. A blacksmith is a fool if he doesn't know his tools :)   I really wish I knew how old it was, but I found absolutely no markings of any kind. Is there any other way of dating tools like this ?

 Excellent ! Thank you ,sir, that is precisely the answer I was hoping for . I appreciate the information. A blacksmith is a fool if he doesn't know his tools :)   I really wish I knew how old it was, but I found absolutely no markings of any kind. Is there any other way of dating tools like this ?

 

Probably not unless you plan on carbon dating it or having the iron otherwise analyzed.  If you watched the sparks as you ground it you might have noticed if the spark pattern changed significantly from lots of sparks to much fewer sparks as you ground the pointy end.  Older hot cut chisels had a piece of high carbon steel embedded in the end of iron chisels.  Grinding away at an end with embedded steel edge eventually would grind off the carbon tip leaving a soft iron edge, thus the change in spark pattern coming off the grinder.   A more modern solid steel hot cut would be less likely to display a change in spark pattern as the end is ground away. .... not the ideal way to redress a tool that might have only steel at the very end.

 

From the same book mentioned above (the book is free at the above url):

 

 A blacksmith is a fool if he doesn't know his tools :)  

 

This may help http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/18783-an-introduction-to-blacksmiths-tools/  

 

Enjoy your new journey

Note that the "hammer face" is not meant for hitting but instead to be hit by a hammer and so are generally soft. That way they don't mar the face of your hammer or send shrapnel from two hardened faces hitting each other. I see you already dealt with the mushrooming that the unhardened face develops.

I must say I like the look of how it turned out with the polish vs the aged pitting.