As long as we're talking about nails...

I'm cataloguing an artefact assemblage from a mid- to second half-19th century
metal workshop in Tasmania (Port Arthur).

Common within this assemblage are numerous copper alloy nail shafts from both
cut* and wrought nails.

These nail shafts have very clearly been snipped off from the rest of the nail.
My initial reaction was that the nails had been snipped when removed from
whatever they had been hammered in to, and the shafts then taken to the
workshops to be melted down again.  However, on closer examination, it would
appear that every single one of these snipped shafts is entirely straight - even
when hypothetically snipped just below the head [this is admittedly a judgement
call, based on the average length of the complete nails recovered].  This
suggests that these snipped shafts are in fact from nails that were never used -
at which point the initial reaction has problems.  Never mind the problem of
why, if the shafts are being taken to be melted down, the heads aren't similarly
being taken for melting.  There isn't a single nail head fragment in the
assemblage, and I don't think that I'm looking at incomplete nail shafts for
which a head hasn't been applied/formed yet [though I could be convinced
otherwise here if someone has a compelling case].

A small number of complete nails have also been recovered, some clearly used,
some clearly never used, so they aren't much help.

Any suggestions on interpretation from the more nail- or blacksmith-oriented
amongst us?


Alasdair Brooks

[* note potential for confusion here!  I'm using 'cut nails' solely to refer to
technology of manufacture, and 'snipped nails' to refer to the intentional
cutting off of part of a complete nail regardless of manufacture technology]