I go along with the doo-hickey designation.
I checked with an expert collector of ice cream scoops and she has never seen such a thing and did not think it was ice cream related. Also, the edges are much too blunt to shave ice. No markings whatsoever. It is pretty sturdy; scoop is somewhat thick, about 1/8 inch. Seems to be professionally manufactured rather than home made.Tommy
I am pretty convienced it is used in the process of butter making. They used it to scrape the butter from the churn, if my ex-hubby were around I would ask him, his mother made real butter, but well.......I am convienced. I am going to do a on-line search for butther churning and see if I can find it!
It looks like a curved butter paddle, only not solid wood like the one I saw on www.lehmas.com under butter making supplies. Go see if you think it could possibly be that Tommy. I am almost convinced that is what it is. And whoever made it was very smart indeed. Can you imagine how much work it took to churn butter in an old wooden or crock churn? You would most certainly not want 1 little bit go to waste. I think that tool would have done an excellent job scraping the sides and paddles of any butter that would stick to them.