touchstones

touchstone, noun

1 : a fundamental or quintessential part or feature : basis
    "a touchstone film of that decade now considered a touchstone of the city's life" - Michael Specter
2 : a test or criterion for determining the quality or genuineness of a thing

3 : a black siliceous stone related to flint and formerly used to test the purity of gold and silver by the streak left on the stone when rubbed by the metal

  I have a few things in my shop which I keep around for no practical reasons beyond that they are talismans of one sort or another; they remind me of good things. Like keeping a rosary handy, or a rabbit's foot; they bring "good luck" because they bring good thoughts to me.

 This chain and hook are one of those things:

 I just realized I forgot to include something for scale - oops. The links of the chain are about an inch long and 3/4 inch wide, the hook is about 3" long and 2" wide, and the overal length of the chain is about 24".

  I found this hanging on the wall of my garage when I bought it.  At first glance, if one knows a little about how such things are made, it immediately appears to be very old, but in fact, it could be anywhere from 50 to 500 years old - it would be impossible to tell without a sophisticated metallurgical analysis, performed by a rare sort of expert using very expensive equipment.

 But here's what makes this thing special: it is hand-made, hand-hammered, and hand-forge-welded, ever link of it, and the hook.   The links are not uniform, which means whoever made it did so without even the most basic of chain-making tools, such as a link-bending jig; no, this chain was made one link at a time, each link bent by hand from bar stock, then forge-welded to itself. The last hammer blows the hook received are still visible in the metal:

 Now, whether this was made before the late 1800s (when automatic, steam-powered chain-making machinery was invented) or whether it was made six months before I bought this house by some amateur blacksmith, I have no way of knowing.  Well, the patina of age is hard to fake - the thing was probably at least fifty years old when I got my hands on it.  I suspect it's one of those things that people kept around their garage - through multiple incarnations of their garage, because my house is twice as old as my garage - and just never got thrown away.

 All I do know is this: someone wanted this thing to exist badly enough to spend DAYS making it, using sweat, a hammer, and the most simple of striking tools.  It is only two feet long, and I have no way of knowing if there ever was more to it.

 If your or I need such a thing today, we can trot down to the local hardware store and buy a length of arbitrarily strong (you get what you pay for) chain and a clevis hook and be back home in less than half an hour.

 Thinking about the patience and physical effort required to create this thing tends to put me into a fugue state of wonder and admiration, circling around notions of craftsmanship, patience, and work ethic.

 It is a good luck charm; a touch-stone.