The hammer head is so mushroomed and the claw so curled that I don't think any steel was ever involved. My feeling is that it was made from recycled iron in the days when that was common practice and I would love to see a modern smith make one from scratch.

Rick, you probably know about this.
Older wrought iron tools.
How old?
Wrought from original ore without reaching molten state or otherwise?
Single metal, or a different carbon content metal 'worked in' for the tip?

You can guess where I am coming from or thinking about, just wondering if this 'art' is to be found in other areas. Please forgive my ignorance.

if memory serves the metal needs to be straw yellow for cutting rock).

To be technical, that is the tempering stage.
The item will be heater to "red hot" the tempreture of which is judged by the colour in a dark-ish room. "Cherry red" is an often used description of the colour required. This depends on the steel, and is judged by the smith. The item is then quenched into (usually) water.
This leaves a very hard, but brittle item. The item will then be cleaned to bright metal.
The final stage is to carefully heat the item again to probably a straw yellow colour and allow it to cool.
This reduces the hardness but increases the toughness.

In some mines (Snailbeach in Shropshire as an example.) It was the practice for the miners to pay a blacksmith to sharpen their tools.
The skill is to make tools hard enough that they will not wear and blunt quickly, but not too hard that they chip or break. :smartass:

Hi,
Finch Foundry, (Sticklepath village, near Okehampton, Devon), forged a wide range of Mining and other tools, which were widely distributed by them. The National Trust manage the site, where you can still see the catalogues of all the implements. They were made by trip-hammering a hard steel sheet between two softer iron ones, to produce a hard-wearing, yet flexible tool.
The Founders were Quakers, which reveals the age their tools may have.
I do not have a full copy of the catalogues here, but they may be worth consulting...

D.Send.

same art as the making of the Samurai sword.

A thousand-layer damascened pick might look flashy but it won't cut any better or keep its sharpness any better than standard steel, potentially not as well if it's been made from softer steels. Remember that what makes the katana such a superb cutting blade is the high-quality steel welded onto the patterned back and then expertly quenched and tempered.