I've come up with an answer for this, but it may not be what's prettiest or most interesting to anyone else. I feel like I can make a really pretty tool on command that has nuances in it that won't show up in pictures. but making tools for myself, I usually come up short of that just like a mechanic doesn't always keep their own car running perfectly - they know it's not necessary to do as good of work for themselves as they will for others.
The top picture is three sawmaker's hammers with a boxwood rule made by the toolmakers of colonial williamsburg on the right. Like really made by them, all the way down to making period stamps to stamp the letters. it's a wonderful display of a huge array of skills from the making of the tool itself to the tools needed to make it right.
The hammers were given to me as a gift, not really a trade, but probably loosely seen as that. I got them out of the box and was excited because it's the kind of thing I wouldn't look for and buy for myself. so I tarted the face of the first one up (quickly, not all the way through every single pit) and said "can you tell me more about these hammers". it turns out they were from a maker named yaitiki or yatiki who stubbornly continued to make saws by hand until very late in life. Oops on polishing one, but I doubt if he were still alive, he'd want someone to create a museum for his tools and worship them. so, i will use them making knives and maybe some saws in the long term. these were hammers he used, not just some hammers he had spare.
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