Getting excited over nothing.

Today, at our local car boot sale, I came across a chromed
hand machine, in a very old tatty and worn cardboard box,
It was similar to a huge pair of pliers, in the jaws were pins
that spelt out the date 1901.
For a fleeting second I thought I had happened onto a
hand perfin machine!
The vendor says she was unsure of the source, but she said
she had been advised by other viewers that it was
in fact a punch for labelling cow's ears.
Ouch!