This is a gum scraper used in the New Zealand whaling industry in about 1840. It is made from a semi-circular iron blade and has wooden handles, one of which is bound with string. It is 25 cm high and 17 cm wide.
This asset indicates that the whaling industry was operating about 1840 in New Zealand waters - whaling was New Zealand's first significant industry and an important point of early contact between Mäori and Europeans.
It demonstrates a type of technology used in the whaling industry in Australia and New Zealand in about 1840 - this tool was used for scraping the residual flesh from whalebone.
It suggests that the whale industry extracted maximum value from each whale carcass - pliable baleen, a substance similar to human fingernail, from the jaw was scraped for eventual use in the manufacture of fashion items such as women's corsets and stays and flexible buggy whips, the residual flesh was dried and burned as fuel to heat the pots used for extracting oil from the whale blubber.